A Herd in Space
by Vimesenthusiast
Summary: Book 2 of Chaotic Space: It's been Five Years since the end of the war, and no one involved in that war has been idle. The humans and their allies have tooled up, and are ready now to go on the offensive. Ranma and his family (he spawned!) are heading out to space with the First Fleet and the new Macross. The question is, is the rest of space ready for them, or vice versa?
1. Chapter 1

It should come as no shock that I do not own Robotech or Ranma 1/2. If I did music would certainly not have been the be-all, end-all weapon it was in the former, and the later would've had an actual ending rather than simply petering out as Ranma did.

Here is book two of one of my first, and in some ways my favorite, works. I was going to go into why it was updated and all that here, but I'll save that for the end notes, and instead wish to pay my own homage to the late Sir Christopher Lee, who passed away on Thursday. A tremendous actor who lived a fantastic life, while it was no doubt his time to go (he was 93) he will still be missed.

 **Chapter 1: For Justice We Fly**

"Close Space Watch, this is Wildfire Actual, heading out port hanger five for scheduled full wing training exercise, over."

The Ranma Sugita that spoke was not as changed as other people might have expected over the past five years despite his position as CAG being made permanent. He was a little taller, nowhere as much as he had hoped alas and he still had his pigtail. Kasumi still topped him by more than a few inches, though he could now at least look Lisa and Miriya in the eye and his shoulders and widened by a few inches, but everything else was pretty much the same.

This included the lopsided grin that made him look so young and carefree. The weight of command hadn't effected Ranma as much as it had Roy Fokker when he was CAG. Primarily, it must be said, because the amount of paperwork had been cut down tremendously.

"Wildfire Actual, this is CSW, roger." Minmei voice answered. Minmei had decided to enlist with the space forces about a month after the Day of Fire, which had been a shock to her family and friends. Of course once she did Minmei wasn't used as a regular navy trainee, she was immediately put out on tours to help morale both among the humans and Breezonians, among which she was immensely popular. In fact, Ranma could hear many of the two dozen Breezonian members of his air group behind him murmur excitedly at hearing Minmei's voice, even for something this professional. And despite the fact they had heard her voice dozens of times before for this purpose.

Of course even as a famous singer Minmei had other duties as part of the Navy. Everyone did these days, with the space navy growing and taking on new duties at the same time. She was a natural as a communications officer, and Lisa had grabbed Minmei for her bridge crew the moment she could, after some ferocious backbiting and backroom deals with the higher ups. "Be advised we still have a little cosmetic work going on by the main engines and the aft side batteries. The rest is free. Have fun out there."

"Roger that, thanks for the update." Ranma replied, cutting off the intercom for a moment as the hangar doors in front of him began to open. Ranma turned around to view his men, all of whom wore the same thing he did, the heavy combat suit that had been dubbed almost immediately as the Mega-Man armor.

It was a regular human sized powered exoskeleton, designed for boarding actions against similarly sized opponents or long term planetary insertions. There had been some talk about adding some fashion of transformation to them, a bike or something. That had been vetoed however and the designers had simply added more mobility thrusters instead to the limbs and back. The armor was comprised of a heavy chest carapace, with built up shoulders and chest, heavy armor on the legs up to the knees as well as the forearms with the rest of the body protected by a lightweight, almost fabric-like armor.

The leg units had several small mini-missiles, smaller than even the Queadluun Rau's, set to fire from the knees. The shoulders also could fire mini-missiles singly or in groups of three and all the launchers were connected to a ki-enhanced magazine on the back of the suit that held four hundred missiles. Since even one could destroy a Reguld, and two could kill an unenhanced Queadluun Rau that gave the suit a punch well beyond its size all on its own. The helmet even had an advanced targeting system which could lock onto four different targets and fire the shoulder and knee launchers at a verbal command while the wearer targeted a fifth with his main armament.

One hand had a regular articulated robotic hand, which had several customizable slots for various additions on it. Ranma had several small additional batteries, while others swore by a pop-out knife created by Mousse's Master Weapons. Others had demolition gear, small directional mines, grenades, and other gear that would be more helpful on the ground or in a spaceship rather than outer space.

The other hand however was what gave the Mega Man armor its name. One hand, the offhand of the individual user, was replaced by a plasma cannon. This was controlled by clenching or flicking the fingers of that hand. Like the character that gave it the name, the size of the blast could be changed between normal, large and, if the user had ki they could power it with, extra-large.

Ranma raised his fist in a semi-serious threat to the five-hundred and eighty men behind him. "All right you lot, by this point you should know the drill so I'll only say this once. This is a fire exercise, team one defense team two attack. You all have been in space hundreds of times already, so I'm not going to reiterate the regs. Just know that if you break any of the more important ones I will come down on you like a fucking Cheyenne!"

He was answered by a mixture of various affirmative responses and he nodded over to Miriya who stood close by. Her Mega Man armor was painted in aquamarine (or light green to Ranma and most other males) with red highlights on the fingers, helmet and legs. Ranma's was painted white with a central tag on his chest, the image of a horse made of mixed blue/gold fire painted there. He also had the markings on one shoulder of CAG of the _Macross_.

In actuality Ranma was going to become, once they set off anyway, the CAG for the entire First Fleet Fighter Group. But right now he was training the parasite force for the _Macross_ itself not the rest the fleet since he could leave them in other, equally capable hands. His job was to create the elite offensive edge to that force, which itself was elite.

As the hangar finished opening Ranma grinned, using his thrusters to zoom out while the force behind him shot off in separate directions, with 220 following behind Miriya and the rest following Ranma to the other end of the _Macross_. They would have about 5 minutes to get into position then Miriya's force would attack. Probably from near the hull somewhere since this was simply hand-to-hand combat, spatial relationships and combat awareness training. No need to go over how to fight a Zentraedi or Invid swarm, not in the Mega Man suits anyway.

The surface of the new ship to carry the _Macross_ name was like, yet not like the original, which had been retired a year after the war that was being called the First Space War ended. Other names had been thought up for that conflict, but none of them could be agreed upon by both races that made up the United Human/Breezonian Alliance. The UHBA had more important things to do than name wars that had already been fought anyway.

One of them was building the spaceship whose hull Ranma was now racing along. The _Macross_ , the largest, most powerful ship humanity had ever made, including the second super dimensional Fortress that had been designed using the original _Macross_ 's blueprints. Thanks to Dr. Lang and his team they had taken Robotechnology then molded it with ki-based tech to build a monster.

Twelve kilometers long and a kilometer wide, the flagship of the First Space Fleet was designed to look somewhat like the original _Macross_. A full two kilometers was taken up by the two massive nacelles at the front, which could fire a concentrated beam of energy like the original's main cannon, only much more powerful and much longer ranged. Like the original there was a siege configuration to the main cannon, which could change that beam's size while making it continuous, which was more than five times the size of the original's.

Every inch of the _Macros_ s's outer hull had gone through the ki hardening technique. The hull could take more punishment than an entire fleet of Zentraedi and come out with a smile. That didn't count the four thousand mobile barrier systems that could be operated at a time, with a further ten thousand ready to go at a moment's notice plus the ability to make more internally of course. There was even a large scale barrier ready to go in emergencies, but only in emergencies given the… downside of such a barrier when it failed, which Land had not found a way around.

Forty beam cannons of the size of the secondary batteries on the original in four batteries were situated along the sides of the vessels, all of which could elevate or swivel to cover nearly 180 degrees of fire. Then there were twenty rail guns in groups of four batteries, which were even larger than the beam cannons. These were situated on the top and bottom of the ship, each of them able to kill a ship the size of a Nupetiet-Vergnitzs. Again these batteries were all able to swivel and elevate to cover as wide an arc of fire as possible.

Four-hundred-and-forty torpedo bays were placed practically everywhere they could be, all of them loaded with the smart missiles that had proven so deadly here in Sol. Those warheads had been revamped to be even deadlier, and carried other surprises as well. Ten mine dispenser systems which could pop out the small anti-fighter mines or even deadlier anti-ship surprises. And finally, nine-hundred tertiary weapons designed for anti-fighter defense. The _Macross_ by itself equaled the firepower of the fleet that had attacked Dolza's fortress.

The sheer size and majesty of the Super-Dimensional Space Fortress sometimes took Ranma's breath away. He saw it as an example of how far humanity had come in the five years since the Day of Fire, when Earth had nearly died under the fire of the Zentraedi invasion fleet, and as an expression of his race's determination to see justice done for their dead.

Ranma turned away from the view, smirking as he grabbed a metal bar, one of countless thousands situated on the hull of the ship at present. They had been put in place to help the workers do the finishing touches on the outer hall and were the reason this area of the hull was called Monkey Town. Using the bar Ranma flipped himself around, catching a glimpse out of one eye of one of the Breezonian work drones scattering away causing him to smile.

The _Macross_ , and countless more ships, including the twenty that were going to make up the First Fleet, were all ensconced in the massive bay of one of the former Zentraedi asteroid factory ships. The manufacturing power of one of these asteroid ships was simply incalculable by anyone used to anything about Earth's pre-space war industrial capacity. And that was before human engineers had found literally thousands of ways that it simply wasn't working as well as it could, and then corrected nearly all of them.

 _Of course,_ Ranma thought to himself as he flipped around again look at his troops, _the most surprising thing about the asteroid factory isn't really that the industrial capacity of one asteroid fortresses is so large, the surprising thing is we've got_ _ **three**_ _of the damn things._

"All right troops, you know the drill, spread out and prepare to receive attackers! Wildfire on me here, Black Knights on the eastern side, Silver Spears western, Hammers on bottom and Blood Lords on over-watch." Ranma allowed his troops to pick out names for their own squadrons, but he had to okay them before they actually became the team's call signs and he hadn't okayed many yet because he felt most of them were too vainglorious and stupid. Still, the troops enjoyed it.

While they waited for Miriya and her squads to attack, Ranma's thoughts skittered around to the factory satellites once more. When the _Macross_ and its accompanying fleet returned with the original factory ship there hadn't been much jubilation. Its industrial capacity was a tremendous boon to both the Breezonians and humanity because they had lost most of their building capacity during the day of fire, but that very need and the reason behind it leeched all of the joy from having the fortress. That one was still in orbit around Earth, screwing up the tides majorly, though no one lived near enough to the ocean to really care about that at this point.

 _Then not a month after we returned, that magnificent bastard Breetai takes his entire fleet out on a hunch from Exedore about where more of the factories might be and finds and takes two more of them!_ The plans for that had been laid well before the Macross and the accompanying fleet returned, and Breetai had seen no reason not to go through with it. While his fleet had taken even more losses doing it, they had come back with not one but two of the asteroid factories, tripling the amount of industrial capacity Sol had.

One of the factory asteroids had been turned over to the human military, and the other one to the Breezonians. Not to create new ships, the former Zentraedi and Meltraedi still had far more ships in the could truly man as they should be, but to refurbish and repair the ships they did have, bringing them up to human standards. They still weren't quite as good at maintenance as the more militaristic (Ranma read that as anal) humans could have wished, but they were far better than they had been before.

One of the factory satellites, the original one, had been entirely devoted to the civilian side, creating things for the defense of Earth and for the re-terraforming of Earth. That project was still ongoing. Despite Elder Cologne and her work with the Flower of Life there was only so much that could be done to bring Earth back to life, especially given the warnings Breetai and Exedore had passed on about the Invid and Master's ability to sense them from light-years away. As such the Flowers were not actually used, only the soil that had been enriched by them was brought down to the Earth from the vessels that housed them. All of which were specially shielded to keep any hint of the Flowers energy signatures from leaking out.

The civilians also remained leery about having anything to do with the Flower of Life, likening them to atomic power for some reason Ranma couldn't understand. This despite there not being any side effects to their having eaten anything that had been come from plants whose soil had been fed by said Flower. After all, it had been Cologne's and Lang's experiments with such growth on the way back from the assault on Dolza's fortress that stopped humanity from facing starvation conditions after the Day of Fire.

His thoughts broke off with the suddenness of an axe blow as Miriya's team arrived, boosting out of one of the prepared culverts on the surface of the _Macross_ , long trenches dug into the hull of the _Macross_ for use by the defenders. Thanks to the armor strengthening technique these points were not weaknesses after all, and they could be used to deadly effect as the makeshift ones had proven for the original SDF-1.

However the area in Monkey Town the defenders had set up was just a little too far away from the trench to allow Miriya to really surprise Ranma's defenders, who jetted forwards to meet them on his orders. "Try to keep them at range if you can, don't let them enter Monkey Town!"

Ranma dodged to one side, raising his cannon arm and firing the plasma blast that had helped give the armor its name, catching one of the attackers full in the chest with an automatically limited blast. He then twisted to the side, his heads-up display locking on one of the attackers and he fired two of his unloaded missiles at it, catching the man and knocking him out of the exercise.

Then he had to twist around again to dodge Miriya who had closed with him.

As always she enjoyed their one on one contests immensely, going out of her way to create them whenever she could, though it never got in the green-haired woman's ability to command her fellows. He smirked back at her, his own blood rising in anticipation. After all, he couldn't say that he didn't do the same thing.

When Ranma jetted forwards to meet her however he suddenly grabbed a bar to adjust his advance, directing himself downwards to avoid a training beam that intersected the place he would have occupied. "Dammit Blood 5, if you try to blue me again I'm going to bleed **you**!"

Flipping herself around through a series of turns using the monkey bars that would've been impossible even with the jets of the Mega Man suit, Miriya smashed her forearm into Ranma's legs, flipping him mid-space from the point of impact. Ranma however rode that momentum, grabbing another monkey bar flipping himself around and slamming his head into Miriya's. Ranma smirked at Miriya, his green haired wife's face visible as their visors smacked together. "Hey Miriya, enjoying yourself?"

"Immensely, Ranma!" Miriya replied with a laugh. With that she grabbed him around the middle tossing him away, while at the same time locking on with missiles, but Ranma shot them out of space before firing back with his hand cannon. The two were forced to separate several dozen missiles from both sides flashed through between them.

The combat moved on, both of them moving like wolves among sheep even among these men and women, elite warriors who Ranma had been training for the past year and a half. The only ones who could come close to match them were Shampoo, Tiger, and Konatsu.

Ukyo had never joined the Space Fleet, being scared of being that far away from solid ground. She was instead working with Nodoka in the civilian sector, and was now one of the chief food vendors on the ship. Many of the soldiers and workers all around the _Macross_ ordered U-boxes, her special delivery lunch boxes, when they were on the job.

Her boyfriend Konatsu however had taken to life among the navy like a duck to water and never looked back. He was now squad leader of the Silver Spears, one of the few names that Ranma had allowed to stand. They had taken the old silver color from that nearly wiped out unit, adding a spear to its insignia with the word 'revenge' etched on its side in English for their badge.

The battle continued seesawing back and forth as both Miriya and Ranma exerted control expertly over their forces in the chaotic melee that had erupted in Monkey Town, both sides taking losses but neither group losing unit cohesion despite the environment and the chaos of the battle. The conflict ranged from one side to the other of the 12 km long spaceship to the other, only avoiding the sections that were still being painted or having other last minute work done.

 _Her years off certainly didn't slow Miriya down much._ Ranma thought sardonically to himself in the privacy of his own helmet. It would never do to say such a thing where Miriya could hear him after all.

Miriya's wish to have a child had been a shock, though not as big a one as Lisa's news originally. That Miriya would want to have a child as well had astonished Ranma, but he had been fine with the idea. Getting Miriya back into fighting trim however had taken a year after she had given birth, but her endurance and strength had returned at last.

She had given birth to a young girl who they named Dana. She was now three years old, and had her mother's green hair and his blue eyes. Dana was his third child, because Lisa had given birth to twins.

The 'discussion' about that had been their first real argument as a couple. Ranma didn't actually have a problem with becoming a father. Yes, he was worried about the example he would set. Yes, he was extremely worried about the amount of time he would be able to spend with the kid in question, given his duties as a naval officer. But since Lisa had decided to do it, and she certainly wasn't going to give up her career, that hadn't been the point of discussion. The point had been that Lisa hadn't told him about her desire before they slept together that night. He would have liked to have planned it more, as weird as that sounded coming from him.

Thanks to Kasumi it hadn't gone much further than a few minutes of shouting by both Ranma and Lisa. She made them both come back into bed then made each in turn realize the other had good points. Kasumi made Lisa realize that she really should've told Ranma about the fact she wanted children, and made Ranma realize that he was being irrational about it and that if Ranma had died Lisa would've at least had something to remember him by.

 _Of course my mom was over the moon about it,_ Ranma thought sardonically while he quickly changed direction using a monkey bar, dodging another attack firing off all of these missiles almost automatically, one missile per target killing six of the attackers.

Then he had no more time for thought because Miriya had closed once again, with Motoko following after. Motoko had never developed the leadership ability to become a commander, much to the chagrin of Roy, though Ranma had never been unhappy with the arrangement. And in exercises like this, they made certain that Konatsu and Motoko were on opposite sides, along with Shampoo and Tiger.

In terms of rank Miriya was not only second-in-command of the entire parasite force of the First Fleet, but leader of the predominantly former Meltraedi portion of it, though she always joined these exercises as well. She and her fellow power-suit operators got just as much out of it as the humans did despite the fact that they had to shrink themselves if they wanted to join in since the power requirements for that process were no longer a limiting factor.

Thanks to the factory satellites, there were over a hundred dedicated refineries in Jupiter and Saturn's atmospheres, each of them with a seed from a Flower of Life. Thanks to that abundance of fuel, there were numerous stations on nearly every human ship where Breezonians could be shrunk if they chose. There were seven dedicated stations just on board the _Macross_.

At first there had been a push to shrink the entire Breezonian race, more to aid the food crisis than anything else, but thanks to the Flower of Life and the satellites that had proven unnecessary. Nor did the Breezonians wish to become simply more humans, they wanted to retain their own identity as a race, and part of that was their size.

Ranma dodged backwards a bare inch, using his jets with all the skill of the man who had helped design the Mega Man suit, his foot coming up to clip Motoko's side as she extended her energy blade just a little too far to recover quickly enough to block his attack. She careened away, but bounced off one of the bars to come back with another slash that nearly got Ranma in the side despite his evasive maneuver.

Then Miriya was on him, and the two women began pressing him hard. Ranma used the last of his missiles to force Miriya to back off, keeping her at a distance with his arm cannon before he concentrated on Motoko. To Ranma it looked as if his adopted sister was still having trouble adjusting to her modified suits reach, because he was able to once again take advantage of her overextending. He grabbed her outstretched sword arm, flinging her into two of the grappling defender/attacker pairs that had sprung up all around them. Then Ranma rocketed away, intent on not allowing the two of them to gang up on him like that again. "Better Luck next time you two!"

 **OOOOOOO**

The battle was going well, Reddofnonnac of the 7th Battle Fleet of the Zentraedi, was pleased to note. He had been given command of the assault on this system, which held one of the five primary Invid worlds, or hive worlds as his men called them. While the other battle fleets assaulted the rest, Reddofnonnac had been given command of seventeen scout fleets and his own battle fleet, and the fighting had been brutal from the moment they folded into the outer regions of the system.

The Invid were dangerous opponents, most particularly on their own ground, where they had centuries to build fixed defenses that could back their fleets up. However as always numbers were beginning to tell. The fact he kept on bringing in another scout fleet every time he took casualties upwards of a thousand ships, was slowly beginning to give him numerical superiority in every theater of the battle across the system. Indeed, his main fleet had just crushed the last…

"Sir!" said one of his officers, interrupting Reddofnonnac's thoughts. "It looks as if there pulling back!"

"What?" Reddofnonnac turned rapidly, moving over to the officer who had spoken up from his portion of the tactical center. "Show me."

The man wordlessly pointed to a series of dots up that had previously been scattered around the third planet in the system blocking the scout fleets he had assigned to take it. The planet in question was a heavy grav world rich with minerals but didn't have enough life to sustain a full bug colony. As a pure resource planet it housed several dozen of the massive Invid mining hives digging into the surface for precious metals and other resources they needed to create their warships.

He hadn't noticed before, but the four scout fleets assigned to that planet had been having a lot of trouble on their approach. The numbers of the Invid units around that planet were orders of magnitude larger than his sensors had initially told him. Now however those same designators were falling back into the planet's gravity well.

Before Reddofnonnac could voice confusion at that odd change in the normal Invid tactics, another one of his men spoke up. "Sir, the same things happening over here by the fifth planet."

That was a gas giant, seeded with literally millions of small factories for pulling up various materials from the gases. No Zentraedi knew what those materials were for, it wasn't for powering the Invid ships since that would imply they ran on the same principle as the Zentraedi's own, which would be anathema to any right-thinking Zentraedi. Yet it too was a target, and a full wing of his assault, a hundred thousand ships of his own fleet, had just begun to turn towards intercepting the gas giant as it came around the sun.

But the defenders of that planet were retreating into its gravity well just like the those around the third planet, an incredibly foolish move . "Why are they retreating?" Reddofnonnac shouted, looking around at his officers who all tried not to catch his eye, none of them having an answer of course. "Why are they retreating into the gravity wells of those planets? Don't they know that will trap them there, we can destroy them at our leisure now!"

He wasn't very much of a strategist or tactician., but even the least intelligent Zentraedi could understand that if the enemy was doing something unusual, it might be prudent to be leery of traps. He had no real idea what the losses sustained in their Invasion of Invid space had been so far, but he knew they were high, and this was the Invid's own ground, where no Zentraedi fleet has had been able to penetrate before. The unusual here could be deadly.

He scowled as his officers continued to avoid his eyes before turning back to the tactical map. Just as he did he saw the icons of the four scout fleets around the third planet go out. "What just happened? Did we lose their signal for some reason, get them back online!"

One of his officers hurriedly worked at the controls but shook his head. "Sir, there's nothing there, they're, they're gone!"

"There were a little under 40,000 ships there! What could destroy them all so quickly?!"

As he was shouting, his fleet had continued forward following the scout fleets in front of them towards the primary target, the hive world deeper in system. Suddenly warning lights flared on every ship of the fleet, including the admirals. "What is that!?" Reddofnonnac had never seen those warnings before and seeing them now filled him with a growing bubble of fear.

"I don't know Sir it…" one of his officers said then glanced over at another, this time the ship's navigator, who shook his head. "It says that we're in an interplanetary gravity well so strong we can't fold out, but that can't be, can it?"

"Of course not you fool, we aren't anywhere near a planet yet!" Reddofnonnac turned back to his display, and noted that he had been correct. They hadn't reached their target planet yet, indeed they were at least four light years out still. And even then, almost no planet had a gravity well strong enough to stop a ship from folding out entirely, except for certain super-gas giants. Any gravity well could screw with their ability to control the fold, but stop it entirely, no.

But this went far beyond even that. No, in the next few minutes, as Reddofnonnac tried to think of what to do, his ships normal space drives began to falter. He felt it in the feel of his ship as it continued forward. "What is going on now!?"

That shout was directed at the officer who was in charge of communicating with the engine room. On a human ship that would mean he was an engineer. As the Zentraedi had only the most rudimentary knowledge of how to use their systems, that was not the case here. Even in engineering, the most important part of the ship, the men only had a neophytes grasp of their machines.

It took a moment for the man to reply having to listen to the report form the engine room. "Sir, we, we don't know. Everything is working, but it's like we're moving through a heavy atmosphere now."

Reddofnonnac stared first at the officer, then back into the tactical screen, trying to figure out what the hell was going on, a deep, churning sensation filling his stomach. Then as he stared, hundreds, no thousands, no millions, of markers suddenly appeared surrounding his fleet. "We're trapped!" he said his eyes widening as he realized at least a portion of what was going on.

 **OOOOOOO**

Beams of power began to crisscross space as the trap was sprung at last. The artificial gravity well was an energy consumptive defensive feature of every Invid hive system that the scientist caste had recently devised. With the power of their own Xshoisthas, what the Tirolians called the Flowers of Life, they had scattered around on all of those planets, the Invid could bend fold and even spindle the natural laws of the universe to fit their will at least in any particular solar system.

If it had been a Tirolian the Regent would have smiled. As it was his mouth tentacles moved spasmodically at the end of his long, almost slug-like proboscis. "Excellent, we have them trapped." He said gesturing at the tactical display before him, a round holographic image hovering in the center of his throne room, beamed up from a scepter like growth that had grown from the floor at the start of the engagement.

This system wasn't one of the hive system, whatever the Zentraedi had been told, it was **the** hive system, the Invid's original home. That was why this particular battle had been controlled by the Regent personally. Due to time lag even the Regent couldn't control battles elsewhere in the universe communications but here, here he could. So he had planned this trap in order to start regaining the momentum in this war.

 _The Zentraedi are so predictable,_ the Regent thought to himself. _Strengthen my mobile defenses elsewhere among the hive systems while seemingly leaving this one without such, and they come barreling in._ _Whatever their industrial capacity, losing this many ships without any return will hurt them, and this is only the beginning._

He held up a hand, his fingers, which each had five joints, wiggling as they seemed to grasp the image of the embattled Zentraedi fleet. "Crush them, destroy the dogs of the Betrayers!"

 **OOOOOOO**

Reddofnonnac tried, but with the limited repertoire he had concerning tactics there was nothing he could do now. Whatever was forcing his fleet to remain in normal space did not effect the Invid, and they jumped around with impunity, dodging what shots his fleet could aim their way while returning devastating fire on his practically immobile ships. That first group of encircling ships began to fire at his fleet from all sides, and while he was trying to deal with that their carriers launched millions of the Invid Troopers at his fleet from all sides. They closed and it was only as they reached the fleet that the Zentraedi ships and Regulds were able to move freely in space once more rather than as if they were on a heavy grav world's surface.

Evidently the weapon the Invid had used to change the local gravity of space couldn't filter out their own troops once they were mixed in with the target. But this was scant comfort, as Regulds were a poor match for an Invid Trooper at the best of times, let alone the much speedier scout versions, which had longer ranged weapons to destroy capital ships. It was only in overwhelming numbers that the Zentraedi could have any kind of advantage in a dogfight, and this was not the case now.

Even as Reddofnonnac tried to take advantage of his ships moving normally once more, his flagship shuddered violently. A flotilla of Invid Longspires, what the Zentraedi called the Invid equivalent of a gunship, had zeroed in on his flagship from long range and was now pummeling it with their heavy beams. A second later his ship shuddered so violently Reddofnonnac found himself on the ground. Even as he tried to get to his feet, he heard the emergency decompression warning, and seconds later, knew only darkness.

 **OOOOOOO**

After the largest Zentraedi ship in the invading fleet exploded under the fire of a dozen Fire-bringers the Regent turned away, knowing that the battle was already won. "Make sure to recharge the pulsar of the third planet and the graviton wave-front. It might be needed again in the future. Once this battle is over, tell the fleets to jump out to M'ethdroc after the resupply is complete."

The fleet he had just used here was his primary reserve fleet, which had been held in the atmosphere of the two gas giants of the system before the trap was sprung then had folded out immediately upon exiting. With that reserve adding to the defensive power of one hive system at a time he would achieve numerical superiority in each theater one after another. Even without the Regent in direct command that kind of superiority would allow the local commanders to beat off the invasion forces, possibly letting them wipe out the entirety of the Zentraedi assault in time. At worst a full season perhaps before the Zentraedi invasion of their territory ended in a complete disaster for them, which he could then take advantage of.

Losses since his people had been forced on the defensive had been just this side of acceptable. Much like the Zentraedi's themselves had devolved, many of his commanders had done the same, only thinking in terms of numbers and head on clashes, but the Regent himself was not cut from that mold. Having realized the problem upon the destruction of his own horded offensive forces, the Regent began to winnow through his noble and upper lever leader castes for people who could still think in terms of tactics. He didn't care about losses really, there are always more drones after all, but he knew the importance of victory and the need to make the enemy pay more blood than your own troops, and that was all there was to it.

Now however, with overwhelming superiority in each one in turn of the hive systems, his actual losses would slow down, while the Zentraedi would continue to bleed. After that, he might be able to take the offensive relatively quickly after the last reversal five solar cycles ago. "How go the construction of the new Hive ships?"

At those words a small luminescent ball on the side of the room he was standing in glowed, and another voice answered, the voice of one of his primary Noble caste commanders who had been placed in charge of one of the nearby secondary systems. Normally the purpose of these systems was to funnel resources to the hive systems where it was converted to the Invid's ships and power armor, but this one was different. With a single gas giant and two asteroid rings it made a perfect place to build the large Hive ships that were the necessity of any offensive action. Without then the Invid would not be able to replenish their stores, despite every one of their ships having literally thousands of drones ready to go above and beyond the ones normally working the ship or assigned to their various spacefighters.

"Hive two is ready to be launched and join Hive 1. Hive three is 80% complete. Hive four is at 62%, Hive five is at 92%. My workers on that have proven to be of higher quality than the others. I recommend one of their supervisors, drone number EEEEE 2,536,255,677 of the tertiary caste, Gibran system, for elevation out of the worker castes and into the lower leader caste."

"Do so." the Regent said, nodding his slug-like proboscis, in a gesture he had picked up from the Tirolian scientists before The Betrayal and one he could not get rid of no matter how many cycles it had been since then. It wasn't usual for a worker drone to be elevated to a minor leader, but it happened occasionally, and the precedent was clear. If the drone was more intelligent than most for some reason, that intelligence had to be rewarded. "I would like all those factory ships ready to go by the end of the lunar cycle of the home world."

That was about 40 days, and the noble caste Invid on the other end of the line answered in the affirmative.

With that done the Regent glanced over at the tactical screen, which showed his fleet mopping up already. Trapped, and with their typical lack of coordination and organization, the Zentraedi had been ground under from all directions.

Seeing that was well in hand, the Regent looked at a small noble caste Brain Type, who was only half his size. Being a Brain Type, he was highly intelligent, and coming from the noble caste his job was to think of long term strategic matters or follow up on plans of the same. "Have our scout fleets found any sign of the Regis yet?"

"Negative." the smaller Invid replied. Then he went on without further prompting, something only the ruling caste would do. "We were able to discover several system where she might have been, but her hyperspace signature has either faded too far overtime for us to get a good reading on, or been disguised in some fashion. I have asked the Scientist caste to look into that, but they have not made much headway as yet."

The scientist caste was another offshoot of the noble caste. Much like the far older offshoot simply called the Brain Type, the scientists were highly intelligent, and they were devoted to coming up with anything that could help the war effort. Unfortunately they were also a very small caste, and after a massive spurt in ideas that had given the Invid most of their war machines, they had not found many offensive weapons that could be used without the massive amount of power available in hive systems. Still, their contribution to the rest of the Invid war effort, especially in manufacture and land based warfare, could not be understated.

"Over five hundred solar cycles since she disappeared, and we have yet to find even a hint of her." The Regent said shaking his proboscis in another gesture picked up by the hated Tirolians.

"With respect Sir," the other Invid replied, "I realize that the Regis and the forces she took with her would be helpful, but we are burning several hundred thousand ships in searching for her. Should we not recall those, especially now? Surely the Regis hates the Betrayers as much as we, and is making war upon them in her own way?"

The Regent thought about it for a moment then replied in the affirmative. "This is true, we could use those ships. Keep them at their current task until we receive word that the factory ships are ready to go, and then recall them to add to our offensive armada. The time it takes them to arrive at the ready point will give us time to supply the factory ships and get them there in turn."

He didn't comment on the Brain Type's statement about the Regis hating the Betrayers as much as the Regent. After all, that was not possible.

For just a moment the Regent allowed himself to remember the times before The Betrayal. The times when his people were peaceful agrarians, living in harmony with everything on their planet, cultivating the Xshoisthas, before the Masters came. The Regent and the Regis ruled their people content with their lot, tending their planet as one who would tend a garden, peaceful and simple, uncaring of the stars above. They were immortal, as humans would understand the term, the Regent had lived forever and had led forever and always would. The Regis too had always been beside him, for millennia before The Betrayal.

The Betrayal... even now, centuries later even thinking of it caused the Regent to quiver in rage.

The humanoids had come in peace, or so they claimed at first. They had landed, made overtures of peace, bringing some of their own technology, their communication equipment in particular was fascinating, and allowed the Regent and the Regis to better control their people for the betterment of all wherever they were on the planet. Their leader Zor said they wanted to study the Xshoisthas, and they had, and the Regent and Regis had learned beside them, discovering more about the Xshoisthas that was the center of their people's lives. Far more than they had ever thought possible. That the plants could be used to achieve a higher form of evolution was astonishing to them, but not wholly surprising.

Using the energy to change the very fiber of everything on their planet, the Invid had created a paradise. There were spires of purple Illithook reaching hundreds of meters into the sky, their scent carrying everywhere, green, white and red Isial shaped into fantastic shapes, and the Xshoisthas itself spread across the planet, changing, growing beyond the 'flower' it had been into amazing, varied growths. His people sang as they worked them, and their songs matched the garden in their beauty.

Then came what the Regent called the Shame, an event he shared with no one. The Regis, his queen in Tirolian terms, had transformed herself into a humanoid to better interact with the humans. The Regent had thought it an excellent idea at the time, but both had overlooked the fact that bodies carried their own set of internal rules and desires….

The Invid had no concept of the word 'sexuality', or sex at all, being egg layers. The females laid eggs at the time when the race needed more workers, and the needed caste type male fertilized them. They had words for beauty, beauty of music, of form and landscape, but not of an individual.

Upon her transformation, the Regis had become one of the most beautiful creatures that had ever lived, far outstripping the Tirolian females in appearance, and yet did not have any mental defense against others seeing her that way. What happened between her and Zor the Regent didn't truly know, but even after being forced to return to her normal form the Regis had changed. She had become distant, almost but not quite **Other**. The Regent could sense it, but could not understand what had occurred, could not figure out what the problem was.

And then came The Betrayal. Zor wasn't there, but his servants were, and with them came others and still others, giants larger than even the tallest worker drone. They did not come to talk or to harvest. No, they attacked, ruthlessly slaughtering his people and stealing away as many of the Xshoisthas they could. They left behind a blasted landscape where once there had been beauty, where towering spires of hives had lived for millennia now there were but charred ruins. But the Regent had survived, the Regis had survived, and much of the noble caste had as well.

They began to rebuild with rage and fury in their hearts, and they began to adapt and grow beyond what they had been. The Betrayal was the reason the Invid had gone to space at all, to hunt down those who had slaughtered their people and stole the Xshoisthas from them.

But the Regent had seen the reality of that act, so had taken it one step further. If one humanoid race could do this, others would as well. The Xshoisthas and what it could bestow upon those who discovered its secrets were too tempting. Therefore any spacefaring race was to be wiped out before they could become a threat. Several such races were found and dealt with before the Regent found the worlds of the Betrayers and ordered that initial assault. It was only the Zentraedi's presence and their numbers which had kept him from winning the war right there. Since then however the war had devolved into a stalemate of back and forth slaughter.

Initially the Regis had been with him, standing beside him as the Invid went to the stars. Yet there had been a tension between them after The Shame, made worse when the Regent convinced much of the noble cast to destroy other spacefaring races. The Regis had disagreed with that, as had a minority of the noble caste, but that was not the underlying reason.

The Regis had changed, her thoughts had changed when she had evolved to a higher being and she retained some of that ability. To the Regent, that kind of thing was anathema. You could change how you did the job, you could change the tools you use, you could add new jobs as time went on to deal with new events or needs, but your thought processes, how you saw the universe and your place in it, that should stay the same.

But not a dozen cycles after the initial assault on the Masters, the Regis and all of their people more loyal to her than to the Regent, had disappeared. _What are you doing Regis_? He thought to himself as he turned away from the Brain Type, making his way through his command center towards his throne. _Where are you, what are you doing? What happened between and Zor to change you so? Centuries have passed and I still did not know the answer to that. Have you evolved again, have you become_ _ **Other**_ _once more? I would hate to have to destroy you as well if so._

 **OOOOOOO**

The battle in Monkey Town continued for another three hours, yet again something Ranma had deliberately set up. Normal battles between air units never lasted that long among humans, but battles against Zentraedi were routinely as long as four hours since they simply kept on funneling in more troops. And there was no reason to think that would change in a planetary or ship assault against the Zentraedi or the Invid, if they were forced to fight them.

Thankfully this wasn't exactly the first exercise of this type, not even the hundredth really. All of the _Macross_ Wing were well used to this kind of 'game' and could hack it. If they couldn't by this point, Ranma would have made certain they weren't here, so close to the estimated date of departure for the First Fleet. His winnowing through the human and micronized Breezonians had been utterly brutal. Because of this at the end of the exercise unsurprisingly most of the attackers and defenders were still alive, which was a win-win to Ranma. It wouldn't have been if the defenders had any advantages other than simply defending a position, but all in all it was an excellent exercise.

His chronometer pinged at him and Ranma sighed irritably as he opened his com on an all hands frequency. "All right troops, time to pack it in. You all have final suit fittings and Variable Fighter calibration, and for my sins I have a meeting of the higher-ups to get to. Sound off on injuries, and those of you who died you know what you're in for."

There was a chorus of groans from the people who had died in the exercise, since Ranma believed in motivation by humiliation. When you did well, he praised and rewarded you, but when you did poorly, well, Ranma had done away with most of the hazing crap that went on in the Air Force or Space Forces, but when you died in an exercise, you were once again fair game to your fellows. Still even the people who had died more than once in these exercises took it with aplomb. Most of the jokes were funny even if you were the butt of them after all, and there was a big difference between training to be alive after the fight and laughing about it than dying for real.

With that done, Ranma switched frequency to talk to Minmei. "CSW this is Wildfire Actual, training is over and we are heading back to the barn. Where do you want us?"

He nodded to Miriya who came up next to him and to Motoko who followed quickly, taking her position in Wildfire squadron. Her lover Lucretia followed as well. She had qualified for Wildfire a year ago, and most thought it romantic that she would want to be in the same unit as Motoko. Ranma however had already had to give them a few official warnings about carrying on in public around the rest of the troops.

Ranma didn't have a problem with it, but the COB and the maintenance crew did. Not really, watching two hot girls make out would never be something any sailor would object to, but the COB and the chief's complained it was bad for discipline. It wasn't in the squadron, but Ranma had been forced to take their side on that point.

"Affirmative Wildfire Actual, please use hangar bay two aft side." Minmei's voice replied quickly, a giggle present in her voice. "Be advised we have a few little colts EVA right now in the hanger, they seem to have gotten away from their mother for a moment."

Ranma laughed as did Miriya while the Mega Man units all fell in around them. Coming into the hangar bay at the head of the fighter corps they could see the problem. Two toddlers in space suits were bouncing off of things ecstatically, as at home in zero-g as they were in gravity, though they didn't quite have as much coordination. Their bright, merry giggles could be heard on several different frequencies, and a few workers, who had surrounded a Timber Wolf in the corner, were shaking their head in amusement.

Another space-suited individual was hooked into the doorway, watching them with amusement evident in her body language even through her space suit. "Those two are truly yours children Ranma." Kasumi, the goddess of the _Macross_ shook her head with amusement. She was called that even on the new ship given her popularity among the troops and among the civilian sector she was even more popular, and her company, 'Heavenly Designs', had grown by leaps and bounds in the past five years. "You don't see my child bouncing off walls like that."

Miriya's reply was rather droll as she scooped up one of the two toddlers as he bounced off the wall. "That would be because Tenma is barely a year old. Hello Eric, what have we told you about going off on your own in zero-g?"

"Not to do it." the boy named for Ranma's dead role model muttered. Even at five years old the two twins were rather precocious, and Ranma had begun to teach them martial arts exercises to aid their hand-eye coordination. Because of that they had as much body control as most 10-year-olds, and they seemed to think that rules were made for other people, a concept, all three women were quick to point out, that they got from their father.

Their coordination was proven when Eric's sister, Ranko, propelled herself off the hanger wall right into her father's arms without his needing to use his jets to maneuver to catch her. "Hey princess." Ranma said snatching his firstborn daughter out of the air with his articulated hand right before she could slam into his chest plate. "How're you doing? Did you all come out to see me?"

"Yep!" Ranko replied chirpily, hugging her father's helmet as the two of them descended to the ground. " Kasumi-ka-san let us come with her 'cause we already finished our lessons for the day."

Both five year olds were taking kindergarten level lessons because they were much more intelligent than normal children their ages. Indeed there had been a marked increase in the rate children fed by food developed through use of the Flower of Life developed mentally across the board, not just Ranma's children. This had quashed some concerns about the process, though of course not all of them.

It alas meant that those children exposed were going to be markedly smarter, and longer lived than their fellows, a point that many had made but the naysayers still couldn't get their heads out of the sand as far as the Flower of Life was concerned. _They'll have to eventually,_ Ranma mused _, even Canada can't keep feeding them all, not with the weather on Earth fucking with the farm seasons down there, but that's their problem, not mine._

5 minutes later the rest of the air group had touched down and after the door closed the hanger began to pressurize. He grabbed his daughter's hands however when Ranko reached for her helmet latch. "Now you know better than that! You wait until the tone, then 2 minutes, and even then, you wait and watch an adult remove his first." Ranma said sternly. "Vacuum is no joke, right?"

Ranko looked a little chagrined through her helmets glass, and nodded. "Yes pama." Pama was the made-up name all of Ranma's children had developed for him after seeing the curse in action. It matched neko-Sha, for Shampoo and Mou-duckie for Mousse. Shampoo had been more than a little irritated by her name at first, and Mousse was still threatening 'braticide' if his own kids ever started to call him that. Ranma on the other hand was fine with his.

"Good girl." Ranma replied, hugging her lightly. Not a moment later helped his daughter take her helmet off. With his daughter hugging his head Ranma strode over to Kasumi, leaning in to kiss her, ignoring his daughters gagging sound. They'd have to get used to it eventually after all.

Turning away from her parent's disgusting display, Ranko waved with one hand to Aunty Konatsu, who waved back cheerily, before moving off with the rest of the men through a doorway set along the back of the hanger, which abutted a large changing area for the Mega Man suits.

After a moment Kasumi pulled back, murmuring into her lover's ear. "You have a meeting to get to but I know that's going to take the rest of the day so I thought you would like to see the kids as much as you could."

"You figured right, saiai." Ranma said putting his arm around Kasumi's shoulders as Miriya came up on his other side carrying Eric, who he nodded to, winking. "Hey kiddo, you two were bouncing around pretty well, sooner or later we're going to have to start teach you how to actually use those jets of yours."

Both five year-olds grinned gleefully at the very idea, while Kasumi rolled her eyes and amusement. "I'll say again my last. **My** son isn't bouncing around all over the place."

"No." Miriya reply drolly. "Tenma's **crawling** all over the place much like her sibling." She shook her head, joining Ranma as the two of them trooped off to take off their armor before coming back through the hanger to rejoin Kasumi and the children. They exited through into the hallway together, through the secondary hatches that separated the hanger from the hallway leading to it, prepared specifically to withstand both vacuum and explosions in the hanger.

Lisa was waiting for them on the other side. Her space suit was still in the shop having its look remodeled to take in her new rank as captain of the _Macross_ , though that wasn't actually her full job description. Captain **and** Vice-Admiral of the First Fleet was much closer, and she was paid accordingly. Lisa was the senior human voice of the First Fleet, chosen for her task not only because of her work on the original _Macross_ but because she had won an immense amount of respect from her Breezonian counterparts both high and low for her actions in the First Space War.

In her arms she held three-year-old Dana, Miriya's addition to the herd (or horde, depending on who/when you asked). Dana was as precocious as her older siblings, though did not have their body control. Still she didn't seem to realize that, and Dana wriggled and squirmed as she saw her birth mother and father coming towards her.

"If it isn't the other little princess!" Ranma said, moving forward to take Dana and putting her on his other shoulder after kissing her cheek soundly. The two girls giggled at one another then began to bat his pigtail between them, a game they had developed recently.

Lisa leaned in for a kiss, pulling back quickly when Ranma made to deepen it, shaking her head ruefully. The family hadn't had much time together the past few months, and all of the adults, when given the choice between having 'adult time' or hanging out with the kids, had chosen the kids. Still certain… needs were building up. "None of that Ranma, we have a meeting in about 40 minutes. But like saiai said, family time is important."

"Too right." Ranma murmured back, sighing faintly. He tried to spend as much time with the kids as he could, and with Kasumi running her interior design business and with so many aunties and even a few uncles (not to mention a certain matriarch) ready to look out for them they weren't exactly feeling the lack of parental influence. But still the one thing Ranma didn't want to become above all else was a distant father to his children, so he made time for them as often as he could.

The small family moved through the _Macross_ along the massive hallways designed both for humans and for their giant allies. They rode a small moving walkway halfway up the side of a much larger one, much like in the original _Macross_ , which passed doorways marked for factories and ordinance applies. The interior of the _Macross_ was dominated predominantly by the factories , of which there were over a hundred of various types, and by the cityscape which was again modeled after the interior of the original _Macross_ taking into account several things they had learned since, and the fact that it wasn't designed for the city itself to be mobile like the original had been forced to. The nacelles of the main cannon were not part of the construction of this section, so it was unnecessary.

The Sugita clan had a large house on the outskirts of the city, on one of a multitude of platforms set into the side of the massive area set aside for the city. Four more houses of similar size shared the platform with the Sugitas, all of whom were owned by their friends. Motoko owned the closest one, a small two story house which abutted the Sugita place. She spent a lot of time there, but not her evenings for obvious reasons. The other houses were owned by Shampoo and several of her sisters, Ukyo and Kotatsu, and last but not least Tiger and her husband, Rana Sanga, patriarch of the mixed Rajput/Amazon tribe.

Among the houses there was about four acres of room given over to a garden, where several robots grew spices and vegetables for the family and their friends, the excess of which was added to the ships stores. The garden changed from that sort to a rock garden around the Sugita house itself, complete with a small koi pond in the back. If someone looked closely you would see a small opening along the top of it, where glass could come out from one side to cover the pond, to keep the water inside during a battle.

The exterior of the house itself looked almost like the old Tendo place, but not quite since it was a bit larger. The interior was also vastly different, though the initial entrance seemed much the same. The kitchen was larger and much more modern. The TV room doubled as a communal bedroom for the children. This was a two story affair with one side of the room dominated by several TV's, one of which the children could access for their lessons (and had to on a daily basis). The other was a game system, which could be used only if one of the adults put in the password to turn it on. The second wall contained several dozen drawers full of children's clothing.

Small cubicles were set into two of the walls. These were beds for the children, large enough for them to keep using until they were of an age to want their own rooms. They were also able to be closed airtight just in case, something their beds had in common with many throughout the city. Kasumi was rather paranoid about her children's safety, but no one else had seen fit to try and stop her when she designed the cubicles. After all, despite the strength of the _Macross_ , who knew what they would run into out there?

In fact those kinds of bed were the norm throughout the ship. The only ones who didn't have beds like that were those like Nodoka who was claustrophobic. Her house instead had a room as large as the Sugita TV room that was specially prepared in case of catastrophic damage to the ship.

The family's dining room was on a corner of the house, with the two outer walls open to a small porch so as to let in in the breeze. Next to it was a large bathing area. This included a sonic shower which would be used if water began to be rationed (doubtful given all the uses the Macross had for it), a large bathtub, and a regular shower. There was also a bathroom for the kids.

Where the original Tendo place had a master bedroom, three regular rooms, and a guest room, this house had only three more rooms along with those already mentioned. One room was a single story office for Kasumi filled with several computers, paper, pens and a large desk. The walls were also lined with the children's attempts at art, all of which Kasumi thought as precious. Another was Nodoka's room, which she used regularly, delighting in watching the children.

The third was a two story master bedroom set into the back corner of the house. The first story was dominated by a bathing area, separated from the rest of the room by glass walls which could be darkened or kept clear at the press of a button. The rest of that floor was a sitting and dressing area. In the loft was the master bed, where all the lovers slept together.

After packing away the kid's spacesuits for them Ranma spent a few minutes walking his two oldest children through a kata designed to build other hand eye coordination. Then he taught them a patty-cake game to play with Dana to do the same before heading into the shower. His haste to get clean however did not stop him from taking a few minutes to make out with Lisa who was just coming out.

Coming out of the master bedroom in his dress uniform Ranma saw Kasumi standing by the doorway to the TV area, smiling at Dana and Tenma. The two youngest children were playing with some blocks on the floor while Ranko and Eric moved through their new kata. Kasumi knew somehow he was standing behind her, and spoke, her voice a whisper. "We've come so far in the past five years. At times like this, when I see all of our children together in the house you made and I designed, it makes me wonder if it's too good to be true, if this is all a dream and I'll wake up back in my old room in Nerima."

Ranma's arms went around her waist, one hand gently moving up to tap a small platinum ring set with a single diamond that Kasumi wore on a golden chain around her neck that hung to between her breasts. He wore his own ring from Kasumi on a similar chain, along with another signifying his relationship with Lisa. "I don't normally receive jewelry in my dreams Kasumi-chan, even when I sleep in my female body."

Behind them, Lisa and Miriya came out dressed in their formal uniforms much like Ranma. "I certainly wouldn't dream of such a scene as this in my past life." Miriya said, holding up her hand, on which she wore a ring made of battle steel taken from the Queadluun Rau suit she wore in the last battle against Dolza. A similar ring graced Ranma's own finger. She was the one Ranma had formally married to continue the Sugita line. "Besides not even knowing what jewelry was, I certainly didn't have the imagination to dream up all this, most particularly the mini-me on the floor over there."

Dana looked up at hearing her mother's nickname for her, waving her hands wildly before going back to the blocks game, showing her younger brother Tenma where to put them all.

Seeing that, Lisa laughed. She had a ring similar to Kasumi's though hers was golden set with a ruby. Lisa had declined to be the one to formally marry Ranma to carry on the Sugita name, surprising all of them. But that was before they found out how the Hayes name was reviled despite Lisa's actions because of her father, who the surviving Americans and many others blamed, somewhat accurately, for the fact that Earth had been so unprepared for the Zentraedi assault. Lisa was determined that her actions and that of her two children would wipe away that dishonor.

Now Lisa's tone was teasing as she put in her own two cents. "Me too, I certainly wouldn't have imagined being part of such a family, polygamy was against the law in most of America after all, and certainly not something I would ever have put up with before meeting you and Ranma, Kasumi." Lisa smiled tenderly as she looked at all the kids. "But I am happy with how it all turned out in any case."

Ranma laughed, then kissed Kasumi deeply, causing her to squeak a little in surprise before he pulled back smirking at her. "No more maudlin thought's okay Kasumi-chan?"

Kasumi nodded, pushing him away reluctantly. "Thank you Ran-chan, I don't know what came over me there. But now, I think you three have a meeting to get to. I expect you to be finished in time and back here for dinner however, do all hear me?" She laughed as the three soldiers all saluted her before turning to leave, while she moved into the room to spend some time playing with the kids.

Not ten minutes later the trio of officers was in the elevator going up the uncounted stories to the conference room. Inside the conference room they found President Gloval and Admiral of the Fleet Prescott waiting for them, the two older men having arrived early to talk in person with no prying eyes or chance of interception. Like so much else, the Day of Fire hadn't stopped humanity's desire for politicking, and Gloval's position as president wasn't as secure as his counterparts among the Breezonians. While a good seventy percent of humanity, and all of its military personnel, thought that the mission of the First Fleet was not only necessary but just, the rest were much more ambivalent about it.

There was even a percentage of the population who desired that humans try to make peace with the Robotech Masters. Luckily they were a very small minority group. Vocal yes, with their spokesman Lynn Kyle, but small and almost routinely ignored. To say they had no representation in the fleet was a understatement of Breezonian proportions.

Ranma couldn't help but notice the physical changes Henri had gone through since becoming president two years ago, a year after he retired from the Space Navy. Henri's hair had gone permanently gray, and he looked both as if he had gained weight and lost it in a way. Gained weight because he was no longer part of the space force and didn't have the exercise and fitness requirements of such to follow and losing it because of stress. Humanity was no more inclined to be quietly united than ever, despite the fact that they had a very easy to understand list of priorities now. It was now the order of those priorities that they argued about.

That didn't even count the ongoing religious issues. Mecca, Rome, Israel, all of them were gone, along with every other religious site humanity had, though much of their art and relics had survived, transported into space by forward thinking people the world over. But the Muslims and Christians had never really come to grips with the whole 'there are aliens out there' thing, though there was a certain group of both that had tried to convert the Breezonians after the war. They hadn't had much luck, and both groups had taken such a heavy pounding that the survivors were scrambling, making it up as they go.

Both groups now had splinter parties that advocated breaking from the Breezonians, blaming them for the destruction of Earth, and had begun to strike out against them and the 'traitorous, blasphemous puppets of the UNSF'. Thankfully they just didn't have the space based penetration to be a real issue, and the other world religions, had taken the events much more in stride. They were angry yes, but not towards the Breezonians. The Hindus in particular wished to bring Kali home to visit the Masters personally, an idea Ranma agreed with wholeheartedly.

Ranma, Lisa and Miriya saluted both men then moved to join General Mannstein and Brigadier Rana Sanga on that side of the table. Sanga was in command of the 'land forces' aboard the _Macross_ , while Mannstein commanded the totality of humanity's land forces both assigned to shipboard duty and on Earth, a task he shared with a Canadian general named Tom Melbourne.

He was accompanied by his second in command, Scott Bernard, a former US marine, who had made the shift to the Spartoi, the mech designed to replace the old Spartans. The Spartoi were an interesting design that Rana Sanga and Mannstein had both gotten behind and pushed, though of course it remained to be seen how good they would be in combat. They were, along with the Timber Wolfs, designed to be the primary planetary invasion force, not to add to the ship's defense like the Cheyenne class. Though unlike the replacement for the Monster, they could be used in a pinch.

Scott had been one of the men chosen to test the Spartoi when they came out. Ranma was friendly with the man, but not very close to him, finding him a little too by the book and regimented for his tastes. Still, he was a damn good grunt, and Ranma trusted him to do his job when the time came.

Ranma exchanged nods with elder Cologne, who looked utterly unchanged by the past five years, and Dr. Lang, who looked older and even more absentminded. Next to Lang was Shampoo, who was going to be the leader and spokesman for the Amazon tribe on this mission, while Cologne stayed back to lead the remaining tribe and continue her experiments with a few of the Flowers of Life, trying to determine how they did what they did to soil and plant-life. That would not include the original, giant one. That was ensconced in the new _Macross_ , having been moved under heavy shielding into it much like the others had been spread out among the Home Fleet.

The young Amazon hadn't changed much physically in the five years, taller by a few inches and bustier as well, that was all that had changed physically. Mentally however, she was much more mature, a dependable warrior and a true leader (and she had even lost her accent!). But in some ways she was still very childish, shown by the way she was pointedly not looking in Sanga's direction.

 _More than four years since he married Tiger, and she's still upset about it. Ahh well, nothing I can do about it. Though I wonder if Sanga's trying to play matchmaker, he seems to toss Shampoo and Scott together pretty often…_

Ranma's thoughts were interrupted when the hatch to the conference room opened, and Breetai strode in. Despite being miniaturized for this conference Breetai still stood over ten feet tall, three feet taller than even Sanga. Yet the unequivocal President for Life and Admiral of the fleet didn't need his size to dominate a room, he could do that with his sheer presence and the weight of the years behind his one visible eye. The other eye was covered by a smaller version of his mask when he was micronized.

After him came his second-in-command Azonia and her lover Sonya, who had become the aid-de-camp and chief of operations for the Home Fleet, which was commanded by Azonia. Or the mobile portion was, the rest were Prescott's, which was not a small amount since Home Fleet dwarfed the First Fleet in power and size. The First Fleet was designed to be independent, to explore, and to above all hit hard and fast. Home Fleet and all of its disparate units were designed to do one thing: annihilate any threat to Sol as quickly and efficiently as possible.

The screen at the back of the room revealed the truth of this. Set to display the solar system it showed literally hundreds of designation markers, each of them denoting different forces of varying strength spread across the entire solar system. The most small and yet most numerous markers were tiny dots designating packs of satellites spread out across the entire system. Those were a weapon of last resort given the power expenditure of that particular weapon. But if you wanted an enemy fleet annihilated, no ifs, ands or buts, the Panoptes Project would do the job.

"Breetai, welcome my friend." Gloval said, standing up to exchange handclasps with his counterpart. The two men spent a few minutes greeting one another and the others, then Breetai sat down next to Azonia and Gloval took over the meeting. "Captain Hayes," Henri said looking over at Lisa. "Your ship is the last to be equipped for this for this journey, I believe the floor should be turned over to you first."

Lisa nodded. "We're ready." she said simply. "The ship is fully stocked, all the civilians aboard know precisely what they're getting into and have signed the agreements for said. My people are ready and my weapons are all fully online. We're just waiting on the final test of the engines, after that we can sail whenever."

The need for a civilian sector to handle all the things the military either couldn't handle well or didn't have the time to handle was something a few of the diehard officers were not exactly enthused by. Yet it had been proven emphatically during the war that the civilian side aboard the original _Macross_ had been a tremendous boon to its long-term fighting ability. Considering that this mission was probably going to take at least ten years, possibly far more, that was most definitely a consideration.

And despite the fact the UNSF dominated nearly all aspects of human life now they were still nominally under control of a civilian government. Gloval had a cabinet to help him make political/social decisions, there was even a senate. Each space dock and colony had a single senator, something that bothered the hell out of many, but wasn't about to be changed. Since Canada and the other surviving (for a given value of surviving) nations of Earth each had one as well, they had to lump it. The fact that to vote at all one had to have served in the UNSF or in a job related to that or the space industry bothered many as well, but again not enough people protested to really make an issue of it.

Like the original, the new _Macross_ would have a council composed of civilians and military personnel. It had worked then, it would work now, though with her other duties Lisa would have to take a more distant approach to dealing with the civilians than Henri had.

Gloval nodded then turned to Dr. Lang. "Doctor I have to ask again, are you positive you want to go with on this mission? You're needed here, Emil."

"Not any longer." Dr. Lang replied smiling faintly as he waved one thin, bony hand in the air. He hadn't been a young (or even middle-aged) man before the war, and had aged badly since. But Emil Lang had always dreamed about going beyond Sol and exploring space, and would be damned if he was left behind. "Elder Cologne and I have trained my replacements, who still call themselves redshirts for some reason, well enough." Lisa and Gloval got the reference, but none of the others did, and they both controlled their smirks easily. "They'll be able to handle the continued study of the Flower of Life and continue to expand our knowledge of Robotechnology. I however might be needed to figure out any scientific issues that crop up."

Gloval sighed then nodded. "I can't force you to stay Emil, you're a private citizen after all still…" he shook his head, not wanting to voice the fact that Emil was likely not going to survive the journey, age alone would see to that. "Never mind. Admiral Breetai, I believe you have a presentation for us?"

Ranma the others all leaned back as Breetai stood up, moving to the display which began to change, showing a star chart.

The First Fleet's missions were very simple in theory. One, seek out life, any other spacefaring race, and if they haven't already run into the Robotech Masters, warn them about them. Breetai and Exedore had both been upfront about the fact the Zentraedi had wiped out several other races, and their guilt about that would never allow them to ignore further victims of their former Masters.

The second mandate was to seek out the rest of the Zentraedi fleets. If they could be convinced to at least stay neutral that would be nice but if not Breetai was fully prepared to order the annihilation of anyone who willingly remained slaves to the Robotech Masters. It might seem cold, Ranma thought so anyway. Yet it was fact that Breetai and every other Zentraedi of his fleet Ranma had talked to said that the majority of other fleets were run more like Kyron's, and it was unlikely any would have the mental capacity to see they were slaves at all, let alone join with the Breezonians. So he was prepared to swallow it.

Those however were secondary objectives. Destroying the remaining factory ships out there was a primary one, as without them the Zentraedi war machine would wither and die on the vine. That would be primary objective 1B basically.

1A was the eradication of the Robotech Masters own ability to make war, using any and all means. They had wiped out countless other races using the Zentraedi as their tools, they had brought war upon the Invid forcing them to change into the scourge that the Zentraedi knew today. Humanity and the Breezonian people had spoken, and unless the Tirolians themselves threw off their leaders, the Robotech Masters would pay for their horrible crimes in similar coin.

First Fleet was also supposed to take the fight to the Invid **if** they could, since every Breezonian commander believed strongly that there could be no peace with the Invid. The humans were not as certain about that, and there would be an attempt to talk to them first, but only one. After all, the Invid too had wiped out a few races of their own, and humanity had felt the sting of near genocide, and had nearly lost their home planet. Such a threat could not be born. But for that Fleet One couldn't afford to be a bludgeon. The Fleet was going to have to be surgical about that, since the Invid forces were simply too large and too dispersed for anything else to work.

After stating the chosen missions for the fleet and going over the command echelon's roster, Breetai turned the discussion over to Exedore to talk about where the Robotech Masters could possibly be on the chart. This was something that Breetai and his people did not know thanks to the Robotech Masters wiping such knowledge from their systems.

Ranma smirked a little, leaning back and thinking hard about Dolza, about what that bastard had done just to prove a point, about who had created him, and who had set the Zentraedi like an attack animal aimed at the throat of the universe. _The chains are broken assholes, and your former toys and targets have joined together, and gotten time to prepare. We're ready now,_ he said to himself. _Time to get some of our own back._

 **OOOOOOO**

"I'm booooreeedd!" said Eric, sighing leaning back from the game station and Kasumi winced internally. That was one of the most fearsome battle-cries in the galaxy, especially coming from the Herd. Because when one felt that, the others were going to start up as well. Indeed even as she thought that the two twins turned to her, along with Dana. "Can we go do something Kasumi-ka? Please, we finished all our lessons for the day, could we go to Mini-Universe?"

Much like the original _Macross_ , the miniature golf courses that had been designed on the new _Macross_ were amazing things to see, a major hit with the entire city. Mini-Universe had twelve different courses, all of them using the same gravitonic tech to create amazing trick shots, combined with hard light scenery and real grass. With the planned theme park not open to the public yet it was one of the city's main attractions at this point, tied with Bumper Balls and the VF-Test Center, the equivalent of the arcade Kasumi had designed on the original ship.

Thanks to the hand-eye coordination exercises Ranma had taught the kids even young Dana could play the game relatively well. Or at least seriously, not like so many toddlers could, simply running around and smacking the ball willy-nilly or tossing the ball into the hole rather than actually being able to aim for it. "I don't know…" Kasumi said with a smile, gently touching each of their cheeks. "There's only one of me, and there's four of you. I'm feeling a little outnumbered."

The kids giggled, hurrying up to her and hugging her legs pleadingly. "Please Kasumi-ka! We can even as Tiger and Rijav to come with us!" said Ranko brightly. She got on well with the other boy, as did Eric though the two boys often were also rivals at times, sort of reminding Kasumi of Ranma and Ryoga miniature though without any of the seriousness. Or, you know, Ryoga's self-destructive personality.

"I'll agree to that, **if** you finish tomorrow's lessons now." Kasumi said after a moment. "I'll call Aunty and have her watch Tenma while we're out." Despite having the grandchildren she had hoped for now, Nodoka had discovered she didn't like actually being called granny, so everyone in the family called her aunty instead.

The trio grinned, rushing off to do the homework for the day without any more protests, even Dana moving over to start playing the numbers and shapes game on the console that was her daily 'work'. Kasumi got the niggling impression that they had anticipated that response for some reason.

At that point Tenma crawled up to her, and she bent to pull him up into a hug. Of the four kids, Tenma looked the most like a young Ranma, at least according to his mother. At only a year old he already had a full head of hair, though it was too soon to tell if it would become as dark as his fathers. Their blue eyes however were the same.

Tenma reached up one hand to pat his mother on the cheek, and Kasumi's smile widened, nuzzling her head against his so-soft cheek. Within moments however he was asleep on her shoulder, and Kasumi chuckled quietly. _Hah, best enjoy the quiet while I can. I bet in a year this one will be as rambunctious as his older siblings._ Still chuckling quietly Kasumi turned to put him in his crib, a special alcove on the wall near the floor much like the older children's beds, only with what was called the Nanny model installed sensors that would warn the adults in the house if the baby wet the bed or needed his diaper changed.

Then Kasumi went to call Ranma's mother over. She was indeed free: the last load of farm animals had come aboard a week ago, and at present her subordinates were well up to the task of keeping the farms running without her peering over their shoulders. As such, she was happy to watch Tenma for them.

About forty minutes after Nodoka arrived, the doorbell rang again. Kasumi went to answer it and found Tiger outside with her four-year-old Rajiv. Tiger was a middle-aged woman who much Like Nodoka looked incredibly good for her age. She had red hair down to her neckline, and yellow tinted eyes set into a gorgeous face. Her looks were accented further by long, almost elfin seeming ears and eyes that had a hint of a cat, which matched the tiger claw marks on her cheek. These were a sign that one of her ancestors had been a Musk Warrior of the Tiger tribe.

The Musk had, to Kasumi's knowledge, not survived the Day of Fire, much like the Phoenix Tribe and the Amazons who had remained in the Bayakala Mountains. That made the Amazons who had some of their blood possibly the last sign that they had ever existed in the first place, which Kasumi felt was truly sad.

Tiger's voice broke Kasumi out of her introspection, its tone soft and almost dulcet, a stark contrast to her fierce looks or the crisp UNSF uniform she wore. "My son wished to go miniature golfing," the redheaded Amazon said indicating the boy who had already scampered inside around Kasumi. "I demanded that he finished his homework for tomorrow as well as today, and he set to with alacrity, finishing far faster than I expected. Then when he was finished he said that your kids might enjoy going with us."

"I'm beginning to sense a faint whiff of collusion here…" Kasumi smiled taking the other woman's arm and leading her inside to the teeny room where the herd had already finished their homework. The computer system had automatically checked it and accepted their submissions, sending them off to the kindergarten teacher.

Moments later the family left, heading down into the city proper. As the hover tram made its way down to the main city, Kasumi glanced up at the artificial sun, which she thought of as a giant lightbulb really, set into the sky above the city. This sun was set to Earth's normal cycles, and would dim as the Sun itself as the Earth moved around it. Like the sun that served it, the city in the new _Macross_ was larger and more populated than the one on the original ship of that name.

It was also much more spread out, with a dozen parks here and there among houses and even skyscrapers built around the farming areas. The sides were also much more built up using terraces like the one the Sugita clan shared with their friends. There were dozens of them spread out along the sides of the city, and even two up on the ceiling.

Nor was the city the only difference, the society of the people living here was also vastly different. Whereas the civilians of the original ship had been just that, civilians, with the many different and widely varied backgrounds and political views, this place was very different. Oh, there was still a sharp demarcation between servicemen and civilians, but the civilians had changed dramatically. Not the civilian sector, but the culture of that sector. It was a warrior culture now, a survivors culture created from the amalgamation of several dozen homegrown varieties, Americans, Indians, Russian, Japanese, the Amazons. All them had come together to create a new and unique culture. Kasumi could see the visible signs of it, even if she didn't have the words to really describe it.

She exchanged smiles and nods with many of the civilians around them as she followed Eric, Ranko and Rijav, who were running ahead of the adults. Thanks to her fame as 'the goddess of the Macross' everyone knew Kasumi, but thankfully in her opinion she didn't have to deal with being mobbed like so many actors used to before the Day of Fire. Their society wasn't set up to put up with that level of idol worship.

 _And didn't that come as a shock to the newsies,_ Kasumi thought, remembering the time she had been hounded during her pregnancy by that particular brand of parasite. When Ranma had dealt with them by stringing them up by their underwear and letting his kids pelt them with balloons filled with paint they had attempted to sue. It hadn't worked, one of many such cases that occurred at the time as people began to realize that privacy aboard ship was even more precious because of scarcity. Kasumi knew of several tabloids whose owners had survived the Day of Fire only to go out of business when the new privacy laws went to work.

As they continued through the city Kasumi noticed several hundred soldiers moving the crowds with tabs of their home ships, including many that were very obviously micronized Breezonians. Humans didn't come in shades of green or grey after all. There were many such who preferred to spend most of their time human sized. The city of Altair, which the Breezonians had built into their own factory satellite, wasn't yet complete, so they really lacked a true civil center as yet. The _Macross_ and New America, the colony in Jupiter orbit started by the American colony ships, saw quite a lot of the Breezonians because of this.

But it was the other soldiers that grabbed Kasumi's attention, and she gestured with a nod toward a clump of them asking Tiger, "Can I ask what their patches mean?" The reason they would be here needn't be said, the Macross was the only city within reach of the factory satellite or its environs at present, since it was over Saturn, and none of the human colonies had been placed here save those that were pure military.

Tiger took a glance at them and smiled faintly. "I believe the patches indicate they're from a few of the carriers. The _Big E_ and the _Victory_ , both ships of The List. They had a live fire contest yesterday, so I suppose both flight crews were given the day off."

Having already determined that he wanted to be a pilot like his pama, Eric piped up quickly, moving back to stare up at Tiger. "Ships of the List?"

"Ships which have been given historically significant names that were made famous for one reason or another." Kasumi supplied smiling down at him. "Much like the Japanese contributions _Yamato_ and _Mikasa_ , both of which are battleships."

Eric and Ranko scowled a little at that, not at all interested in capital ships but Rijav and Dana both looked interested. Kasumi looked over at Tiger however, her head cocked quizzically. "The _Big E_ though, I've never heard of that one?"

Tiger laughed, shaking her head and setting her short cropped red hair to bouncing. "It's not actually the original name that was supplied to the List oversight committee. It was supposed to be a homage to an American carrier from WW2, but there is a rather asinine science-fiction ship that has alas overtaken the original in people's minds. The troops refuse to be associated with it, so the name on the List is the _Big E_."

"Interesting." Kasumi said, not really interested in the naming nomenclature, her mind on other things. "Are the Breezonians ready to leave with us?" She knew the date for the First Fleets departure was a bare week away, but with her own work and taking care of the family she hadn't kept up with everything else going on.

"Their Battle Globes have been fully tested, their flight wings are good to go as is the rest of their fleet." Tiger grimaced a little. "I should know, I 'died' in the last joint exercises more than once. Their new anti-air tech is wicked."

"It still amazes me how far Exedore and their other ship designers have come. To think they would be able to design their own space fortresses, if very different in design." Kasumi shook her head, impressed as always by that feat.

The four battle globes were the Zentraedi equivalent of the _Macross_ class in that they each had siege cannons and built in industrial capacity to take care of logistics needs. But they also resembled Dolza's fortress in some ways and the human carriers in others. They had massive interior carrying capacities, allowing them each to carry and service a hundred classic Zentraedi battleships of all types, plus carry nearly an entire fleet's worth of the Queadluun Rau mark 2. And they had the ability to control those ships via remote control like the carrier's remote controlled fighters, the Falchion and the Broadsword.

This included twenty of the fifty Nupetiet-Vergnitzs class command ships, the same type Breetai had used as his flagship, that had also been built in the past five years. Each of those ships was now commanded by a commodore chosen by Breetai and Azonia, much like the captains of the Battle Globes.

"'The fleet and our human allies for battles of mobility, and the Battle Globes to smash anything else,'" Tiger quoted Exedore. The head of the Breezonian's Science division had spoken those words when he had shown the UNSF high command the plans for the Battle Globes.

Kasumi sighed. "I could wish they had done more work on the rest of their fleet. I know the reasons, but it seems so cold."

The Breezonians male population still badly outnumbered the female, and somewhere over 87% of that population was sterile, and many had begun to exhibit mental and physical issues in the past few years, having lived beyond, as one geneticist put it rather darkly, 'their sell-by-date', after which had had gotten very drunk. So protecting their population was not a problem for the Breezonians, indeed the exact opposite. Their ships for the most part were unenhanced outside the Nupetiet-Vergnitzs ships, all of whom had been given 'the human touch', and they would die in battle, but with the battle globes holding hundreds of reserve crews and the ability to make new ships even faster than the factory satellites, they were, as hard as it was for Kasumi to come to grips with, a expendable resource. Indeed, the Breezonians were a massive drain on the food and other resources of Sol, and more than one politician had tried to suggest getting rid of them, though had never come out and say how such a thing should be accomplished.

"I understand how you feel, but I can also understand their desire to go out with honor." Tiger shrugged. "It's their choice regardless."

Kasumi nodded sadly, as she understood that as well, but it was still cold to her. Unfortunately such was life in space.

 **OOOOOOO**

The reports were in and two of the Robotech Masters turned to the third who was in charge of analyzing the gains of the Zentraedi's offensive against the Invid. It wasn't because he was any better at it than either of them would be, it was simply that he had been chosen for that task. After so long, their sense of individualism had dissipated long since. They couldn't even remember their own names any longer and only when interacting with other people did any of the trio even use a title.

After a moment the one assigned to the military intelligence looked up at the other two, shaking his head. "It is as we thought, the Zentraedi gains have been dissipating badly. Indeed, reading between the lines I think I can sense that the campaign is about to turn decisively against the invasion forces."

One of the others reached up with a long fingered hand to rub at his nose, a gesture to show irritation or tiredness his race had in common with humans, though of course he didn't know that. "How long before they are able to take the offensive against us again?"

"If by us you mean our race then 20 to 30 solar cycles, if you mean against the Zentraedi 3 to four lunar cycles." The other replied promptly. " It could be much sooner however, there are some indications that one or two of the Invid secondary systems have been built up farther than we had anticipated, or that the Zentraedi scouts had to been able to report. It would appear as if the Invid have discovered the need for a logistics reserve, which is not good given the Zentraedi losses so far." The one in charge of military intelligence shook his head.

"Our losses in this invasion **have** been exorbitant." Said the third, shaking his head in turn. "I do not doubt that they will be able to break through the remaining Zentraedi and get to us quickly if they do take the offensive. Our fast tracking the latest batches of clones allowed us to field a large force, but it is having severe consequences on their half-life."

Nothing about the Master's tone could've indicated to anyone that he was talking about something living rather than a piece of hardware that was easily replaced. Such was the care they gave to their creations.

"Agreed. We had thought that their invasion force having been slaughtered that the Invid would lack the numbers to defend themselves against a full out assault, but that was an error." the one who had been assigned to look at the military intelligence said. For a moment all three were silent, contemplating what they could see coming in the future, a disaster in other words. The fact that their own actions had created this was something none of the three wished to acknowledge, but it hovered in the air nonetheless.

At last one of them spoke up again. "Retreat, defend, or other?"

"Other." said another one of them. "The Zentraedi factory ships and cloning stations are still within optimum conditions. With them we can still manufacture a large fleet. Have Dolza 2 recall their fleets, the Invid do not have the numbers to both attack and defend against the Zentraedi. If they have to deal with the Zentraedi further, that will not allow them to search for us. And what of the special project?"

At that question two of them turned to the third to field who was in charge of genetic research at this point in time. Again, it wasn't because he was better at it than they were, they were all equally good at every task they set themselves to, but he had been chosen for it. The Masters were in a way the highest level of democracy, where every person could do every other person's job. And yet the cost of that would be one that no human would ever wish to pay. Even the most ardent socialist or communist still understood the need for individualism at some level.

That one nodded his bald, elongated head slightly. "The Special Project is proceeding apace. I estimate another 12 planetary cycles before it is ready to go online. After that three or four planetary cycles of reeducation, and then we can we integrate it somehow into the Zentraedi fleets."

"We will give him overall command of all the fleets save Dolza 2's." Said one of the others grimacing slightly. After the original androids destruction along with his fortress, the Masters had had to scramble desperately to put another android in place over the Zentraedi. After all, without Dolza they didn't have any true interaction point between themselves and the Zentraedi. Their control of the cloning vats and the way the clones arrived in the fleets allowed them a degree of anonymity, but without Dolza, their ability to actually direct those fleets was nonexistent.

It'd taken several lunar cycles to re-create Dolza and to integrate it into the fleets once again. Even then, they had to come up with a cover story for his being out of contact, and for the emergency recall position that was hardwired into every Zentraedi ship to no longer be accurate. It had worked and there was no longer any fear of the Zentraedi slipping their leash again as the females and possibly even Breetai had.

"The fleet is ready." said the third, making a gesture over the console which shot some information towards the other's holographic screens. "All ships have been switched over to hydrogen fuel, and the Planet Crushers are online. I think it would be a good precautionary measure for us to begin to evacuate the planets and prepare our people for war."

The other two both nodded, and one of them voiced their thoughts. "It might prove efficacious. If the Invid take the offensive again, it will take much of their numbers from defense, and we might be able to produce better results in an assault on them then the Zentraedi have." Both of the other two snorted at that, of course they would perform better, their ships were much better maintained, much better designed, much larger, tougher and better armed. In every way except quantity their fleet was better than any other fleet in the galaxy.

"The robotics aspects are online and have no programming issues?" asked the one who had given the military briefing.

The one in charge of the fleet and their people's preparations for war nodded. "The drones are online, and the battle suit units have been heavily trained, both large and small." It was the height of irony that the Masters and the humans who would loathed them so much yet resembled them so much also resembled one another in this, that they had devised ways to keep their losses down.

"The humans…" said another, the one who had spoken up about the genetics project. "What of them?"

The other two grimaced, unhappy about the reminder but understanding why he had brought it up of course. They had three factory satellites. The masters knew that a Zentraedi fleet had taken two of them after Dolza's destruction, and the one that had been in the same system as Dolza 1's original fortress was also missing. With that manufactory capacity under their control production would never be a problem for the humans, but numbers might be, depending on their means of reproducing.

"We have to assume that they will be coming for us eventually, but when that could be we do not know. Possibly after the special project has taken control of the Zentraedi fleets, we will be able to divert sufficient forces to create a few scout fleet to send in that direction. Without the astronomical data on the Zentraedi ships that were suborned, they will not be able to find us quickly. Let us concentrate on the Invid for now."

Both of the others nodded, having come to that same conclusion. "Of course." They all looked at one another, then at some unspoken signal bent to their work once more.

 **OOOOOOO**

It took a solid five days to prepare the entire First Fleet for its departure, but at last they were ready. Then there were the dinners and the parties and the rest of the political and social folderol as Ranma put it, with as this or that Senator wishing to be seen with the heroes that were setting off. He and his wives were all roped into it much to their dismay, and Ranma had to be ordered by Admiral Prescott to appear at most on pain of not being allowed to go with the fleet.

At last it was the evening before their scheduled departure, and it was another dinner, but this one had nothing in common with the previous political gatherings. Instead it was a relatively small group, and they were not meeting anywhere on Earth or New America, but in Macross city at the White Dragon. It was still run by the Lynn family, though all of the workers were paid professionals rather than family, and Minmei did not work there any longer.

There were no politicians here, only people. Wing Commander Rick Hunter and his second-in-command Max Sterling were there, though they would not be leaving with the fleet. They were in charge of the parasite forces of Home Fleet, with Athena and a few other females their go-betweens between their forces and the human's. Despite the five years since the war had ended, logistics and strategy were still beyond most of the Breezonians so it made sense for humans to be an overall command while they handled the tactics.

Athena and Sonya were there as well. They were sitting at a separate table with Motoko and Lucretia, talking quietly about Anya's Audacious Designs, the clothing company the diminutive ex-spy had begun. Ben, who had retired a year after the war ended, was also there. Ranma and his clan were there, as was Rana Sanga and his. So were Breetai along with his wife Delmera.

It had come as something of a shock to most of his officers that Breetai and Delmera got together, but it hadn't come as much of a shock to the humans or to the Meltraedi. Delmera was an incredibly good capital ship tactician (she was in fact the commander of the first Battle Globe), and she always succeeded in taking her objective. After a year or so of being inundated by the human culture, and realizing the depths of the 'whole male-female thing', she had decided that Breetai was her ideal mate. It'd taken a full year and a half to convince **him** of that considering there disparate ages, and the fact that he had truly forgotten what it meant to have a mate, but she had broken Breetai down in the end.

And because Breetai had never been subjected to the cellular degradation of multiple clonings, the two of them had since given birth to their own children, triplets, one boy and two girls. Deltai greatly resembled his father, except for his blonde hair which was all his mother, and the two girls took after their mother in all but their eyes, which were Breetai's dark grey rather than Delmera's light violet.

Henri was there as well, talking quietly to his former flame. Nodoka and Henri had broken it off a year ago. The duties of the president had cut into their time to simply be together, and her determination to go with the fleet and her son and his family had been the clincher. He would be leaving early the next morning to head back to Earth.

Dr. Lang was there as well, talking softly with a few of the Zentraedi scientists along with Exedore, as was Roy and Claudia, who were sitting with Rama and his clan, laughing and talking about old times. "I still say," Roy said shaking his head, pointing angrily across the table at Ranma. "That whole episode with the instant woman water was over the line. I should've broken ya back to a trainee for that."

"Ha, says the guy whose first act as a woman was ta feel himself up. Besides, you were the one who wanted me ta pose fer a pinup calendar." Ranma said with a laugh, toying with the wineglass he hadn't touched. That was one lesson from his father that he had taken to heart, though it was one the man hadn't realized he was teaching him: that alcohol was the enemy of any true martial artist.

He glanced over at Kasumi where she was talking to her younger sister. Nabiki had come a long way in the past five years. After coming out of her grief at the death of her younger sister and father during the Day of Fire, she had thrown herself into the UNSF intelligence apparatus. She was coming along with the First Fleet now, though she had waited until the last moment to move into Macross City and had refused to join her sister's family up on the terrace that the martial artists controlled. She was here by special invitation of Kasumi, since Nabiki had been avoiding talking to her for several years now and Kasumi was determined to get to the bottom of that.

Later it would turn out to be a mix of survivor's guilt and plain guilt. The plain guilt came from Nabiki having taken a hard look at her life and realizing how much she had put on Kasumi when they lived at home. The survivors guilt came from the fact Nabiki hadn't, in her own mind, paid for the fact she had survived when Akane and Soun hadn't. She had used nearly every trick she could save selling herself to get on a colony ship while Akane and Soun stayed behind andKasumi was living at ground zero.

Kasumi set her straight however, and they would see more of Nabiki in the following days. Though her first experience as babysitter would also be her last...

Ranma watched the two sister hug tearfully for a moment before turning back to his own conversation. "Anyway, I could've done a lot worse. I could trapped ya in that form for a few days after all."

"I thought that was caused by some kind of kettle heating the water?" said Claudia, who had by this point heard a lot of Ranma's old adventures.

"Yeah it was, but I know some pressure points that would've made Roy unable ta even touch hot water let alone shower in it. I had it used on me at one point, trust me it would've made it impossible for him to change back."

"In that case thank you for not doing that." Roy laughed shaking his head. "I like my boy bits to remain such, thank you."

"So do I." Claudia quipped smirking wickedly at him and Roy blushed a little.

Ranma laughed shaking his head as did Lisa from where she was sitting beside him. "Get a room you two," she said shaking his head.

"We have a room, it's back in New America," Claudia replied, laughing as well. "And don't think you can come over the prude with me anymore young lady, someone who lives in a glass house shouldn't cast stones."

Lisa raised her hand like a fencer signaling a touch, while Roy chuckled. Then he sobered, looking at them both. "We really don't know what you're going to be facing out there, you know. This could be a huge disaster in the making. If the Masters are even half as numerous as the Zentraedi, or have the kind of tech advantage we fear they might, First Fleet might not be coming back. Are you sure you want to take the kids with you? You know the two of us would be happy to watch them."

"We're sure." Ranma replied firmly a split second before Lisa. He shook his head. "I'm never going to let my kids grow up not knowing me. And I trust myself and the rest of my family to watch over them more than I trust you two, no offense."

Lisa nodded. "We're grateful truly for your offer, and I know were going into danger, but like Ranma said, I'd rather watch over them myself then leave them behind. Besides, with the length of time this mission might take, by the time we return they might be teenagers. I refuse to miss out on that large a part of my children's lives. My dad did that to me, I won't let it happen to my own kids."

Across from Lisa her oldest friend sighed but nodded. "We had to ask you one last time. And I realize that the city here in the _Macross_ isn't really a war zone or anything like that, it's just that I worry."

"I know." Lisa said reaching across and taking her hand. "But seriously the _Macross_ is possibly the most defended area in the entire spiral arm." Disasters happened Lisa knew that, but she refused to let that fear control her life and she refused to let her children go on with their lives without their parents in it.

"Besides." Ranma said shaking his head and nodding over to Rana and Tiger. "All their friends are staying here to." Roy nodded, then adroitly change the subject.

About an hour later, as the dining portion of the evening was coming to a close Breetai stood up, tapping a spoon on the side a glass to get everyone's attention like Henri had coached him. It wasn't a means to gain silence that Breetai would have thought of. "Ladies and gentlemen, as we all know after the past few days the humans have this thing called a toast, where they commemorate great victories or great events. I know all of you are sick to death of speeches I will not make one now. Instead I will only say this." Breetai raised the wine glass into the air above his head slightly (anymore and he would've slammed the glass into the restaurant's ceiling). "To the Future and devastation to the enemy!"

"Devastation to the enemy!" said everyone else raising a glass in turn.

Later that evening the clan left the White Dragon behind, making their way through the city it and up to their terrace. They were almost home when Lisa murmured into Ranma's ear. "You know, the kids are over at the Shampoo's place for the evening. We've got the house all to ourselves." She ended in a little bit of a single song.

Ranma laughed, putting his arm around her shoulder and the other around Miriya's waist. Kasumi smiled grasping the hand that rested on Miriya's hip. "Gee I wonder what we're going to do it with the rest of the evening?"

 **OOOOOOO**

The next day Lisa had to get up early to do a final check list of the _Macross_ ' various section readiness reports, but she woke up a few minutes before even her alarm clock would have done so hearing the very familiar, if muted somewhat, sound of a woman in the throes of ecstasy someplace nearby. Lisa cracked her eyes open and turned her body to the side, feeling the breeze of the open window set high into the second story of their bedroom across her naked body.

Across from her Miriya cocked her head toward Lisa, a small smirk on her face while she lay there simply basking in the soreness that only came from a truly intense sparring or lovemaking session. "They're down below." she said simply then closed her eyes. "If you could tell them to tone it down a little I'd actually like to sleep in for a change."

"Lucky bitch," Lisa said pushing at Miriya's shoulder playfully. "Some of us have to actually get up and go to work today you know."

Miriya raised a languid hand. "Have fun, you know Ranma and I will be joining you when we cross the outer defensive line anyway."

"I know," Lisa said, losing her minor irritation. She leaned over and shared up a long kiss with Miriya before pulling back sighing faintly and rolling out of bed. "Say hi to the kids this morning for me would you?"

"Of course," said her green haired lover, leaning back against the pillows and closing her eyes once more.

Lisa made her way down the spiral staircase that connected the sleeping area with the rest of their bedroom. There she saw that Kasumi and Ranma were in the bathing area. Kasumi was currently pressed flush against the glass wall that separated the bathing area from the rest of the room. Her breasts pressed against the glass and her face was thrown back as she moaned throatily while Ranma was doing something behind her, his lips at her neck. "And she says she isn't an exhibitionist." Lisa said shaking her head.

Neither of them noticed her present thoughts for a few moments and then Ranma looked up from his work on Kasumi's neck, seeing her standing there. His eyes widened and Lisa shook her head. "Could you two hurry it up?" she called out loudly, startling Kasumi from her own passion. "I need to use the shower, and if I join you, I'll be late for work."

Several hours later Miriya and Ranma in his female form joined Lisa on the bridge of the Space Fortress, watching as the fleet assembled around them. 18 human ships made up the human portion of that fleet. Four scout/missile ships, larger, stronger, more powerful than the ships commanded by commodore Oromov used to such great effect in the final days of the First Space War. Five battleships, only slightly weaker versions of the original _Macross_. They didn't have its siege gun, but had even more rail guns and secondary beam weapons, even more than the current Macross, and more barrier shields and armor that had gone through the same process of ki strengthening. Eight super-carriers, as large as the battleships yet completely devoted to carrying the parasite force of the first fleet. Each of those ships could put him four thousand remote-controlled drones into space, completely separate from the four squadrons of manned fighters they all carried. And of course at their head, the _Macross_.

4 Battle Globes made up the Zentraedi portion of the fleet. They were called Battle Globes but in actuality they weren't true spheres. Their aft section was a massive 20 km in circumference globe, but the front of these ships was designed almost like that of one of their previously only much larger, containing siege cannons and various secondary weapons, though they were not nearly as heavily armed as the human ships for their size. Within their confines each of those ships carried a hundred normal battleships of various types. Fully half of the remaining male Zentraedi were also spread between the globes along with over 200,000 of the females to run their Queadluun Rau, all of which had been given what was called the 'Lang Special'.

It was a force more powerful on an order of magnitude than even Breetai's fleet in the first space war, and could handle any kind of battle scenario that they might run into, yet Ranma knew that not all of them would be coming home. He shared a look with Lisa who nodded, understanding that as well or even better than he did, yet both their faces were full of pride as they watched the fleet slowly move through the solar system towards their departure fleet.

Soon they were passing through the quite badly denuded Kuiper belt, which had felt the depredations of the factory ships. Ranma smirked a little at that, remembering how a few of the old diehard astrophysicists had way old about their wanton destruction of solar property or something. He hadn't understood it really, but to say those protests had fallen on deaf ears was an understatement of Zentraedi proportion.

As they passed the Kuiper belt, a song began to play. Looking back on it Ranma couldn't really figure out the precise moment when that song he had chosen on a whim to sing that day on patrol so long ago had taken on a life of its own, become the unofficial anthem of the entire space defense force, even all humanity in a way.

It was so simple, yet so profound, and every person alive in the entire system understood the meaning behind it. Humanity had lost so much, their planet had been nearly made uninhabitable, but they were still unbowed, unbroken, and they were still striving for the stars.

"Take my love, take my land, take me where I cannot stand." Ranma began to sing softly. "I don't care, I'm still free you can't take the sky from me."

All around him the rest of the bridge crew went about their business, but most of them were mumbling under their breath, and if you could hear it, you would've been able to hear that same song throughout the ship as practically every person on it began to sing. Nor was the _Macross_ alone in that. "Take me out to the black tell them I ain't coming back. Burn the land and boil the sea you can't take the sky from me."

"I feel the black reaching out I hear it's song without a doubt. I still hear and I still see that you can't take the sky from me."

In his own command center Breetai smiled slightly hearing that song from the staff officers around him and gave the order to fold out. The ships of the fleet came together their engines powering up to full strength. The song was still going on in the background. "There's no place I'd rather be since I've found serenity. You can't take the sky from me." As Ranma sang the last refrain the fleet jumped, disappearing from Sol space into the big dark beyond.

 **End chapter**

I know that reading the portion with the masters in it was irritating, but I really wanted to show that they had lost everything that made them individuals, so giving them names would be counterproductive. Anyway, here is the first real chapter of Herd in Space, hope everyone liked it. The battles to come will vary wildly in scope, type and size, and the First Fleet will be hard pressed regardless of their preparations. I will introduce the ships slowly, as well as their commanding officers and other secondary characters, along with going into more detail on the weapons, starfighters, destroids and everything else in bits and pieces where I can without interrupting the narrative flow. I really didn't want to inundate you with info dumps in the first chapter.

Oh, and I might put out some omakes to cover the intervening five years, especially Miriya's pregnancy and the panic she went through, and Ranma's attempts to get Max to realize he and 'Ranko' were one in the same. Suffice to say, he ran into issues several times when trying this.

Oh, and I am shooting for a July 3 update on ATP, so if you do ask for something specific bear that in mind, and that Wild Wolf is not effected by this. I put those chapters out as I can, because that particular muse his howling in my ear all the time.


	2. Chapter 2

I don't own Robotech or Ranma 1/2. Such a pity.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and salutations. Warning this has not been betaed, so the quaility will be less than normal. Should still be fun though. Now on with the fic!

* * *

 **Chapter 2 Ordinary Doesn't Live Here**

Ranma woke up early as was his wont after several years in the UHBA. However Ranma quickly noticed something unusual: first that there was a weight on his chest he didn't remember being there when he went to sleep, and that there were several more bodies around him than Ranma remembered there being when he fell asleep. Evidently sometime in the night the twins had snuck into his bed along with Dana. The three-year-old was asleep on his chest, with Erik next to Ranma between him and Lisa and Ranko over between Miriya and Kasumi.

 _Thank goodness we all went to bed last night too tired to have any fun, and that Miriya and Kasumi're still wearing clothing._ The two of them routinely slept in the nude. _I really don't want to give the Talk to even the twins for another four decades or so, let alone Dana. The kids might be smart for their age, but that's an explanation they ain't mature enough to listen to and I ain't mature enough ta give just yet!_

With a sigh and a smile Ranma leaned back cupping Dan's tiny head with one hand. _Bliss._

If anyone had told Ranma he would be so happy as a husband and father he would've laughed in their faces. If someone tried to make a joke of it now, calling him a tamed horse or something, he'd probably punch the asshole out. In fact Ranma had done just that had back on Earth when some idiotic reporter had tried to coin that term. Ranma had been forced to spend a day in the brig for assaulting a civilian without due cause, but it was well worth it.

Yet despite Ranma's automatic defense mechanism, there was some truth to it. Ranma had never realized how fulfilling family life could be. Simply having fun with the kids, coming home to his wives, training up the twins was fulfilling in a way he would never have been able to realize without actually experiencing it.

It had been four days days since the first fleet left the Sol System and they were still in hyperspace. Ranma had no idea how many lightyears they had covered in that time, hyperdrives hadn't changed much in the last five years, but they were still a little faster than any Breezonian or human ship had traveled before, including the original _Macross_. Despite that, they were still at least two more week away, from where the intelligence officers estimated the nearest Zentraedi presence could be.

Whether that presence was still there was unknown. Certainly in the years since the end of the war the Zentraedi should have repositioned their lines, especially those borders which did not touch on the Invid's territory. Still, they weren't going to become complacent about that.

 _And if they are there, we go back to war._ Despite his unexpected happiness at being a family man, there was a very large part of Ranma that was looking forward to that. He'd made a vow five years ago to find the 'Robotech Masters' and make them pay for their horrendous crimes. And whatever else, Ranma was a warrior now rather than a martial artist. He loved to fight, and it had been several years since he had been able to use his skills in anything but mock combat. Those could be fun, but they didn't get the blood pumping like a real life or death struggle.

A little body stirring next to him brought Ranma out of his musings, and he looked down to see Eric rubbing his eyes as he woke up. Ranma looked at his son, catching his eyes and holding one finger up to his mouth. Eric nodded and Ranma, holding Dana to his chest for a moment slid out of the bed before allowing Eric to do the same. He then gently detached Dana, laying her down next to Lisa, where she nuzzled into Lisa's side, still dead to the world.

Motioning his son to follow him, Ranma leaped down ignoring the stairs, then turning quickly, holding his arms out. Eric grinned, jumping up onto the banister and leaping off. Ranma caught him easily before setting Eric down on the ground then leading the way out of the master bedroom. Once the door slid closed behind them Ranma turned to his son. "I think we should go make breakfast, what about you?"

Eric nodded eagerly, and the two of them made their way into the kitchen, only stopping to pick up Tenma, whose monitors said had just woken up. Putting the baby on one shoulder, where he giggled and laughed grabbing at Ranma's hair, Ranma made his way into the kitchen. "Hmmm…I've a cravin' for waffles and fresh strawberries with whipped cream. Sound good?"

Eric grinned eagerly, rushing over to the large freezer and beginning to pull out ingredients.

While his son was doing that Ranma began to pull out the utensils needed. Watching as Eric quickly and efficiently went about preparing the batter for the waffles while Ranma prepared the cream and cut strawberries Ranma was reminded about what he and many other Japanese or rather formerly Japanese people called the Newtype problem, a name they had taken from the old Gundam anime.

All of the food grown on the _Macross_ and on every other ship in the fleet was fed by soil that had gone through the Flower of Life Protocol. There had been concerns among the civilian leadership back in Sol that having the entire fleet eat food prepared like that would only exacerbate the differences people were beginning to see between children fed off such food and those that were not. Thus the Newtype problem: a worry that some new strain of humanity was going to 'evolve' past the old ones.

Eric was a case in point. He had hand-eye coordination that was almost at a teenager's level, and not all of that could be explained by Ranma's training with them. His body lacked the physical development of to match, but his mental acuity was up there as well, at least two, maybe three years in advance of his actual age. They were breezing through the kindergarten work they were doing, and might be done with a year's curriculum within two more months, barely four months after they started.

Ranma didn't care at all about it, knowing any kid of his wasn't going to be normal anyway. But a few of the other parents, even among the martial artist's community, were having trouble with it.

Soon the smell of waffles spread throughout the house, waking up the trio of sleeping ladies and their tiny bedmates. Lisa was the first to appear in the kitchen, and she paused staring at Ranma before bursting out into laughter. "Wh-hahah, oh my, just let me go get a camera!"

Ranma had put on one of his kitchen aprons, but all his kitchen aprons were for his female form. This one was quite baggy in the front, and quite short below. Completing the picture was the fact that Ranma had taken advantage of this, stuffing Tenma into the chest area where the baby was reaching up with his tiny hands trying to grab at Ranma's nose.

"Don't you just look precious?" Lisa cooed, exchanging a kiss with Ranma before reaching inside his apron to pull out Tenma, who had fallen back into the apron when Ranma had straightened up from where he had been leaning over the kitchen table. Patting the baby's head and holding him to her shoulder, Lisa moved to help lay out the table with her free hand while Ranma and Eric finished preparing the waffles.

While Kasumi was using the shower, Ranko and Miriya quickly joined the others, only stopping when the front doorbell rang. Looking at Ranko's innocent expression Miriya rolled her eyes. "That look doesn't work on any of us you know."

"I don't know what you're talking about…." Ranko replied, whistling innocently.

Ignoring the little redhead's attempts at prevarication Miriya answered the door and unsurprised to see the Sanga clan on the other side of it, with Tiger yawning cavernously while Rajiv had been the one to ring the bell. Tiger was one of the few martial artists that was most decidedly not a morning person, and needed about a gallon of coffee to get going in the morning. Because of this she was utterly useless at cooking breakfast. Ukyo sometimes joked that her morning delivery business was kept in the black because the Sangas kept ordering from her every day.

Behind his son and wife, the patriarch of the family nodded at Miriya. "We were apparently invited to breakfast?"

Miriya turned to Ranko shaking her finger at the younger girl, but Ranko had already moved past her to grab her friend. Watching the two disappear inside she sighed. "We really should take away their communicators, they try to do this kind of thing way too often. We're outnumbered at the best of times we don't need the little monsters calling in reinforcements."

"It's good tactics and coordination trainin'." Ranma replied with a laugh, sticking his head out of the kitchen to nod at the guests. "Come on, I figured one of them would try this, though I thought they'd call in 'Neko-sha' or Motoko."

"Thanks for inviting us!" said a voice behind the Sanga clan, and Motoko, Lucretia, Shampoo, and a few of the others entered the house, smirking at Ranma. He rolled his eyes but ushered them in, even taking the jokes about him wearing an apron with good-natured humor. A few moments later Rana and Ranma sat together at the table, with their sons on either side of them talking quietly about what they expected to run into when they dropped out of hyperspace.

No one who had known either of them back on Earth would have believed it, but a firm friendship had grown between the Rajput clan head and Ranma, who despite very different upbringings were very much alike deep down. They both had a drive to excel in the martial arts and in their chosen professions, though their drive there was somewhat different. Ranma was right where he wanted to be, he had no desire to reach any higher, while Rana was a born general, and could rise even higher eventually. They both had an unwillingness to give into any odds and firm moral codes. Ranma's code was a bit looser in certain areas than Rana's but on the important parts they were almost exactly like.

And they were both devoted to their families and the human race as a whole. They also had similar senses of humor, at least in terms of jokes. It astonished people who had only known Rana's on-duty face, but he was a fan of pranks just like Ranma, something that occasionally drove Tiger to distraction.

"Are you ready for our match this afternoon?" Ranma asked with a grin.

The larger man nodded his head, smirking a little eager to his eyes were flashing eagerly. The two of them met up every month for a no holds barred martial arts match, and the record so far had Ranma ahead by two.

Rajiv and Eric exchanged grins, before Eric asked. "Are we going to be allowed to watch?"

"Considering how far ahead in yer lessons you are, I can't say no." Ranma said with a shrug. "Though you're gonna have to finish your own martial arts exercises first."

Ranko and Eric both nodded their head eagerly, while Dana simply nodded. She was younger than the other two, so hadn't begun to learn that much just yet, but she still enjoyed the fun games Ranma and the others had shown her that they called martial arts.

Later that day after the incredibly boisterous breakfast ended, Rana and Ranma faced one another in the training area used by all the martial artists, a communal area set towards the far back of their terrace. Many of the people who had been at breakfast followed them eagerly. They sat or stood around them, silent as the two martial artists stared one another down.

Ranma started the fight, streaking forward with a high kick before leaping into the air using the momentum of Rana block to flip himself upwards, raining blows down on the still immobile Rajput warrior. Rana simply took the blows, batting them aside with his hands, his arms moving in a blur to match Ranma's. Ranma wasn't using the Katchu Tenshin Amiguriken, not yet anyway.

Even so, there were very few people who could've kept up with him. Seeing someone Rana's size move that fast would have caused astonishment and most company. Since this was in the first time they sparred Ranma simply took it in stride, pushing off one particularly hard counter to flip higher into the air and way landing lightly on his feet.

Before he could charge forward again however, Rana took the initiative roaring towards him. A six punch combo suddenly changed into a high kick that nearly caught Ranma in the head, causing Ranma to duck quickly. Only to be smacked into that in the chin by Rana's knee as he brought it up, Rana's entire body performing a cartwheel for a moment before he landed coming in again.

Ranma's ears were ringing from that blow but even so he reached down grabbing Rana's hand when it made to thrust forward, catching it right behind the wrist. Holding it still with one hand Ranma battered the arm and directly under the armpit with his other fist for only a moment before Rana's supririo strength won out. Grabbing Ranma's own arm with his trapped one Rana wrenched to one side pulling Ranma off balance and moving for a hold.

Even though he had put himself in this position foolishly going for a hold of his own, Ranma was wise to his opponent's strategy. Using Amiguriken speed Ranma smacked Rana's hands away, leaning back to kick out. The kick caught Rana in the chest with enough impetus to send the larger man reeling backwards for a moment.

Skirting around the larger man's attempt at a roundhouse kick of his own, Ranma came in from the side, his leg lashing out causing Rana to jump upwards to it avoided, only to curse aloud in Indian when he realized that was what Ranma wanted. Pushing off the ground himself Ranma quickly grabbed Rana's arms again when he reflexively tried to lash out. Before Rana could start to fall back to earth Ranma flipped him around, throwing Rana higher into the air.

Rana desperately tried to it block or redirect Ranma's blows, but he had none of the mid-air combat training and Ranma had. The energy of every blow they exchanged was redirected somehow, with Ranma keeping them in the air easily, punishing Rana all the while.

Despite this Rana still landed a few hits, one of which felt like it nearly broke Ranma's jaw, but by the time they finally came down, or rather by the time Ranma finally allowed gravity to once more have its say, Rana had been practically beaten into submission despite his Tiger and Hibiki-taught (sometimes anyway, when the old Macross's engineer could be found) durability.

They landed and Rana made one last attempt to turn the tide. Shaking off the last blow Ranma had landed he quickly grabbed lashed out with a kick just as Ranma was about to land, taking his leg out from under Ranma. He landed another blow to Ranma's shoulder as he rolled away, but then Ranma was back in after him, and Rana found the side of Ranma's hand touching his neck. "I win."

"Aye. Every time you get me in the air you win, I need to figure out a way to fight you there or a technique to get me back on the ground." Rana grumbled.

"Don't feel bad, trust me, ya already do better than most." Ranma took his hand away from the other man's throat before reaching up to rub at his sore jaw. It wasn't the only part of them that was sore of course. Fighting Rana Sanga was like fighting a mix of Herb and Mint, something of the speed of the Dragon Prince and the strength of Mint who had been stronger though not quite as durable as Ryoga. Sanga had studied under Boroga Hibiki every chance he could, and even gone through the Breaking Point training, yet he still retained his speed, which was simply phenomenal in someone as large as he was.

"Your mistake was to go for a hold when I was able ta see it coming. Grappling may be an area you have an advantage over me in, but that's only true if I can't counter ya before you can lock it in." That was true enough, Rana had studied more grappling styles than Ranma had, which had allowed him to win their last match, but this time Ranma was ready for it.

"Something I will remember," Rana said ruefully, and Ranma knew that he would. Sanga never went with the same strategy twice. This had honestly been a relatively easy match between them. Neither was going to have to limp home, which was probably a good thing.

Miriya came forward, tapping Ranma gently on the chest, her eyes glittering. "I don't suppose you have enough energy to spar with me, do you?" she asked smiling archly.

"Always!" Ranma said with a laugh, moving over to once again take his stance as Miriya did the same. All around them the other martial artists began to pair off, with the two twins doing the same with Rajiv while Shampoo began to play patty cake with Dana at a speed no normal three year old would have been able to. Kasumi sat next to Shampoo as she did, the two of them taking care of Tenma and smiling happily as the daily life of the martial artists went on all around them.

 **OOOOOOO**

The next day Ranma was summoned to an unscheduled meeting of the senior officers. As he sat next to her, he and Lisa exchange a glance, wondering what Breetai wanted. They arrived to find the rest of the fleet officers aboard the Macross present. Of course in hyperspace real-time communication between ships was impossible. Sending a signal to a ship in hyperspace was one trick the Robotech Masters retained which humans had not been able to figure out. Still, small capsules could be sent to the approximate locations of the other ships to give out simple orders.

Once they were all seated Breetai started the briefing without any preamble. "In two days we will drop out of hyperspace into a system along our route to the first target system, a stop I placed in our itinerary. When we do, we will begin fleet-wide training maneuvers. We need to make certain the disparate elements of the fleet work well together and that there is no problem with any of the captains or officers, or even the ships themselves after so long in hyperspace. I think we can assume the hardware will have withstood the test so far but while each portion of the fleet has worked out separately we haven't run full fleet maneuvers before this."

Lisa frowned. "That is true. I'm happy with the noncoms among our crew and most of them across the entire fleet, but some of the other ships commanders and officers could use some more experience before we have to rely on them in a real battle. Especially among the remote-controlled parasite forces, both the captains for the carriers and their CAGs."

"The _Yung Shun_ , and the _Athens_." Ranma said with a frown. "The Chinese CAG, Xiao-Wang, is an arrogant so-and-so. He took part in all of the full flight maneuvers he had to, but he doesn't seem to have much respect for his own units despite being a damn efficient organizer. I'd recommended he be despite that , but politics." He scowled, then when Breetai looked at him for elaboration he shrugged. "The man's connected with one of the big-time industrialists on the civilian side. I'm not saying he's incompetent, he's just…"

"An inexperienced, opinionated asshole with all the empathy of a rock, he's not the only one." Lisa agreed with a nod. "I'm not happy about the _Athen_ _'s_ entire command team, though I have more concern about the battleships. On the other hand, the command structure on the missile ships is excellent. The Russians and Americans crewed them with the most experienced men they could from ensign on up, yet there I think their noncom core isn't as good as the rest of the fleet. But the battleships are a different story. Their captains are young, all hard chargers for the most part and I approve of that, but inexperienced, and their first and second officers are much the same. They could really do with some seasoning."

Then-Commodore Oromov, leader of the missile ships that had participated in the battle, had lived through the final battles of the war and had been moved to head up the new UHBA Naval Academy set on New America, so had not been available for this trip. On the other hand, his flagship captain was still a captain, having refused to be bumped in grade several times.

Well, not **refused** exactly. Every time Alexei Amasovo would take the promotion then would do something unbecoming of an officer very publicly which would force his superiors to demote him once more. Alexei was a ship captain, and he would die a ship captain if he had anything to say about it. He was however willing to act as a commodore.

Still Oromov and those like him could only do so much, and with the massive growth of the SDF after the war there weren't enough experienced personnel to go around, especially with the need to keep a good, professional non-com core. Time in grade no longer really mattered at all except for the highest positions, and there were a lot of captains, commanders and lieutenants who were just too inexperienced to have truly earned their positions. Most had seen battle, but not at their current positions. This was true even for the First Fleet, which had been able to pick and choose its men from the rest of the fleet.

"So you planned for this from the start?" Ranma asked looking at Breetai.

"I did. Our ground troops don't need as much training, but our fleet has to start working up as a full fleet rather than disparate units. It was a problem I always ran into after my own fleet would take large scale casualties. The newcomers would always need to be trained to respond to commands, to work as a distinct team rather than disparate units. So adding it into our plans was second nature."

"Now," Breetai went on, gesturing at the large screen behind him. "I have several plans in mind. Along with joint exercises I intend to run us through several large-scale drills. For our first drill, will simulate a…"

 **OOOOOOO**

Several days later the fleet came out of hyperspace into what was supposed to be an empty system. And in terms of there being no sign of Zentraedi it was. The system had a single gas giant, a few asteroid belts, and two planets, which made it relatively normal in terms of solar systems. However, one of those planets was in the life zone. As the fleet moved deeper into the system towards the gas giant their sensors registered that it was in fact full of life.

Lisa stared at the monitor for a moment, which was currently showing a close-up of the planet, taken from one of the sensor probes shot deeper into the system. "It's so blue, blue and orange, strange combination."

"I think I'm going to shut down my internal message boards commander." said Minmei smiling. "I just know that the science section is going to go insane begging us to stop there."

"Not a bad idea actually, even if the eggheads **can** be rather pushy." Dr. Lang was all right, but many of the other scientists aboard, including several planetary object specialists, were typical white tower academics. 'Arrogant and uncaring of the physical realities of the situation' was the way one politician had put it, unwilling to realize that science and the drive for knowledge was not the main goal of the First Fleet. It was one of them, hence why they were along at all though tied into the Intelligence division under Commander Tendo, but it was at best number ten on the list of priorities.

Luckily Minmei did not go through with her threat about shutting her internal coms because Breetai called the bridge within a few moments of the sensor probes return. "I've just been asked by a doctor Lusten to 'stop' the fleet over that planet so that he can get some readings. Obviously I'm not going to do so, but I think we can slap him and his fellows onto a scout ship and send them off, can't we?"

"We have a few scout ships with room for actual people Admiral." Lisa replied with a nod. "It'll be cramped though, I've only got about four of them onboard the _Macross_ , and I doubt any of the other ships have any, unless you're Globes have some?"

"Doubtful, unless someone sequestered them away and did not care to list them. I suppose I could retrofit one of the Breezonian battleships, but no, best to simply pile them into your scout ships and send them on their way." Breetai turned already punching up the first of the combat scenarios he wanted the fleet to run, though Lisa could still hear him mutter, "And out of our hair," before he was out of the pickup's range.

The scout ships in question were not actually scout ships, as in able to get in close without the enemy seeing them. In fact they radiated more than a battleship to most sensors. But they were extremely durable vessels, with a lot of their own sensors on them and over a dozen mobile barriers for a ship the size of two Valkyries nose to tail. They were primarily meant to go into planetary atmospheres and get readings on anything on the surface whatever the defenders could throw at them and they had the legs to operate away from the rest of the fleet if they had to. They were not a patch on the 'space submarines', the missiles ships who really could disappear, but Lisa doubted any of their captains would be willing to miss the upcoming activities.

"See to that would you Kim?" Lisa asked, turning to her Damage Control Officer, Kim Young. She and Vanessa Laird had stayed in the UHBA after the war ended unlike the last of the bridge bunnies, Sammy. Sammy had become a romantic novelist of all things.

Vanessa was the captain of the Battleship _Constitution_ , a post she had earned during the war, and on Lisa's recommendation. Vanessa had proven far better at large ship movement than fighter command or a mixed combat group, but had passed Desmera's command course with flying colors. She was still very junior to command a battleship, but she was one of the most experienced captains among them even so.

Kim however had yet to show enough tactical aptitude to rise to command position. But as the _Macross_ 's third officer, she handled the damage repair teams, mobile barrier control, and internal operations. Now she simply nodded, turning to Minmei who set up an internal com line for her.

 **OOOOOOO**

Over the next two weeks the _Macross_ and the rest of the fleet were driven into the ground as Breetai worked each unit and the entirety of the fleet through a harsh set of mock battles. And as Breetai had predicted, there were indeed some rough edges. The _Yung-Shun_ was slow more often than not to launch its fighter craft, both the manned Thunderbolts and unmanned Rapiers or Broadswords, the anti-fighter and anti-ship replacements for the old remote-controlled Sabers. One or two of the human battleships had issues with following orders which ordered them to pull back or move in such a way that they did not close with the enemy. And the _Athens_ was simply not up to First Fleet standards in anyway for a time, though they slowly began to better themselves, unlike the CAG of the _Yung-Shun_.

The Breezonians had problems as well. The parasite forces were consummate professionals, even to the point of responding quickly to orders given from Lisa or Ranma, who was CAG for the combined Air Group. Both of them had won a lot of respect during the war from the former Meltraedi, and that had not dissipated in the years since. And the Battle Globes themselves responded excellently to commands, bringing their massive firepower to bear where and when Breetai called for it quickly and skillfully. And the chain of command was firmly established, since all of the commodores among them had worked under Breetai before.

But the former Zentraedi which crewed the majority of the Breezonian battleships were a problem all on their own. Most of them were among the Zentraedi who were beginning to feel the effects of their bodies and minds giving out on them. The 'sell-by-date' that had been built into them by the continual cloning process of the Masters was beginning to take its toll. Most of the scientists who looked into the problem said that the majority of the Zentraedi had possibly another year or two before the degradation began to affect their minds and mental state.

This had given them a fatalistic outlook on life, and that showed in their ship and unit tactics. Breetai and his commodores had beaten them out of this back in the sol system of course. But that lesson had faded during the time in transit when each Battle Globe was cut off and when crews tended to stick together, creating a downward spiral in morale.

It took two weeks, but eventually they relearned the fact that Breetai wasn't going to give them their gift of a Swift and honorable death in battle unless it served the overall purposes of the fleet.

The fleet's mixed unit maneuvers were also horrible. Each of the units knew how to do their job, but doing it all together made for a snafu the first few exercises, because they were not yet used to working together, Battle Globe with battleships, Breezonian unit with human, and super-carriers with everyone else. The only bright spot was the parasite forces, who performed their jobs almost flawlessly once under Ranma, Miriya and Lisa's control.

Those weeks were hard, grueling and seeming without end, with most ships' night cycles interspersed with at least one alarm of some kind going off to wake up pilots or crews and force them to battle stations. Even the civilians on the _Macross_ were not exempt from this, much to their chagrin.

During this time the scientists continued to probe the planet, even going so far as to send down a group to explore. This gave the land based forces something to do, and Rana assigned a squad of men in Spartoi to go down with them, with a Timberwolf firing team in reserve.

OOOOOOO

Lisa sighed, shaking her neck to either side wincing as she heard the crackle from her neck and shoulders, before staring down at the report on the readiness report on the _Macross_ and its Air Group after the last fleet exercise. During it the Macross had been forced to act alone against two battle Globes simulating the part of a Tirolian Battle Fleet. Admittedly not very well, since they had literally nothing about the Masters order of battle, but numbers and diverse parasites had to be assumed. They'd performed well, but of course the exercise had created a lot of paperwork that Lisa had to personally go over, even more so than a full fleet operation.

Then she shook her head rapidly. _Come on Lisa, just a little bit more to get through, than you can head home to a Kasumi or Ranma cooked meal._ Having bad memories of her father doing the same thing and no workspace of her own at home, Lisa tried to not take her work home with her. _Unless… no it's not Miriya's turn to cook is it? Ergh… maybe I'll just eat here, I could tell her Kim, Clifford and I ate on the job, wouldn't be the first time._

While Miriya had many sterling qualities, the ability to cook was not one of them, yet attempting to tell her that was impossible. Especially since even Lisa had learned from Kasumi how to at least make simple meals. The whole family had simply decided to go along with it until Miriya realized her lack of talent on her own, but that meant occasionally having to rely on Ukyo's delivery business.

After shaking her head again, Lisa bore down, turning back to her tablet and working for about another hour before she was interrupted by a knock on the door to her captain's quarters, a small office set next to the bridge where the captain could work on paperwork while the day to day business of keeping the ship moving in the right direction went on under her second-in-command. There was also a spare cot in one corner, where the bridge crew could rotate naps at need.

Right now there should have only been the second watch bridge crew under Clifford Pasqual out there. Clifford was her second officer, the former tactical officer off the _Ironsides_ , a battleship that had been mauled in the attack on Dolza's fortress and only saved by Admiral Prescott's quick order to fold out.

He was a good, if unimaginative officer, and should know not to bother her unless Breetai had pulled another midnight surprise attack out of his bag of tricks. _In which case, the alarms would already be blaring, the trouble with being the flagship of the fleet. I wonder what this is then._ "Yes?"

"Permission ta come in, Lisa?" Ranma asked, poking his head around the half opened door, before pulling his head back and sticking a hand in carrying a large bag. "I bring food."

Lisa laughed tiredly, waving her hand. "Come on in love, I'm so hungry I could eat an elephant." Elephants, like many other animals from Earth, only survived in zoos spread out across Canada, but there was a plan to slowly increase their numbers overtime, or at least there had been the last time Lisa bothered to look into the problem of endangered species. Frankly since humanity itself was endangered she didn't really care to spend much time worrying about non-domesticated animals.

"Yeah, Kasumi and I thought that'd be the case. Miriya crashed the moment she got home." Ranma laughed, his lips twisted into a smirk. "Fell asleep in the TV room. Last I saw of Miriya, Dana was trying to convince Ranko and Eric not to draw on her face." Miriya had been in command of the parasite forces for the majority of the mock battle, Breetai having ordered Ranma to go down as a casualty within half an hour of the war game's beginning, then act as commander of the opposing air group. He did that occasionally, to make certain the chain of command could take up the slack if any one person or ship went down

The _Macross_ in its entirety had sat out several war games already, much to Lisa's professional ire. _Though if the Macross is taken out for real, the fleet will face a hell of a lot more problems than just who is in command after Breetai._

"Well, thanks anyway. I imagine that you need some rest… who am I kidding, this is probably easy for you, oh powerful master martial artist." Lisa said, somewhat acerbically. But she smiled gratefully as Ranma placed the bag of homemade food on the desk, never having noticed that Ranma had hit the locking mechanism behind him.

Ranma pulled up a chair next to Lisa's desk, leaning over to snatch a rice ball from the bag, which consisted of several rice balls and four chicken and vegetable skewers, still warm owing to the speed Ranma could traverse the Macross if he tried.

"Meh, even I'm getting a little tired of this, at least up here." He tapped his forehead, smirking a little. "The body's willing and all, but my brain can't handle all the different scenarios Breetai the Bastard is the throwing at us."

"Hah, so **you** say! I remember the enemy air group coming dangerously close to winning the last war game with you controlling it though." Lisa scoffed, but still smiled at her husband in all but law as she began to eat ravenously.

"That was just luck, and Miriya got her CAP back in possession in time." Ranma said, waving Lisa's words off.

"By the skin of the proverbial teeth, yes." Lisa replied drolly in between bites. A few moments later however, Lisa cocked an eyebrow, because Ranma wasn't eating as much as he would if he hadn't already had a meal. Instead he was looking at her and away, toward a small screen in the nearby wall which could be set to show an image from the ships sensors. At the moment however it was showing a scene from the scientists' latest planetary excursion.

But that didn't matter, what did was Lisa knew what the shifty look in Ranma's eyes meant. "Alright Ranma, what rule breaking are you trying to butter me up for?"

"Should've known I couldn't hide anything from you Lisa-chan." Ranma laughed, looking Lisa in the eyes now. "Well, you know how Breetai told us that we're done with the exercises right?"

Lisa nodded, Breetai had indeed told them that after the last scenario. The fleet needed some downtime after the past few weeks. "Yes, and?"

"Well, I was wonderin', I mean, Dr. Lang mentioned that the science teams had cleared the planet for breathable air and airborne diseases." Which they had. Medical technology, especially the neutralization of pathogens, had grown tremendously over the years. The first team down to the surface which had cracked their helmets had still been in strict quarantine for two weeks, but they had been cleared eventually.

In fact the scientists had reported that outside wildlife which might want to eat them, there was no real danger to humans on the planet. It didn't seem to have evolved any higher life-forms, a few predators which might become so in a few thousand years or so, but that was all.

Indeed, the air on this earth was actually a little better than Earth's present atmosphere, less C02 and dust in the air. Lang had actually forwarded a memo to her from the scientists saying that if the soldiers followed some basic safety measures the planet was suitable for shore leave, if lacking the normal amenities associated with the term.

Yet there was something, some gleam in Ranma's eyes that stopped Lisa from sharing this bit of information. _And I have been working hard lately myself. Let's see what Ranma's offering before I say that he doesn't have to break regs for whatever this is._ So Lisa narrowed her eyes instead. "Get to the point Ranma."

"Well, I'd kind of, um, like to, er, I'd like ta take the kids, that is the three oldest, to see the planet. I mean, only Ranko and Eric have even been on earth before, and even then only for a brief stop when they were, what two and a bit? I figure it might do 'em good ta get out and explore a planet with a real atmosphere and sun, rather than the one in the ship."

Lisa nodded internally, it did sound a good idea to her too, but admitting that would spoil the fun. "Out of the question." She said crisply. "Whatever their mental faculties, Ranko, Eric and Dana are still extremely young children, and children are far more susceptible to airborne diseases than adults. The scientists might have overlooked something that would infect the kids' weaker immune systems. And they'd have to stay in quarantine for at least two weeks! Do you have any idea how much whining those three would do stuck in the quarantine rooms aboard the scout ships for that long?"

That actually caused Ranma to blanch for a moment before he recovered. "I was their age when my old man took me on the road, and I never got sick. I think the exercises I've given Ranko and Eric at least would keep'em from catching anything. Dana, ok, I'll give ya that."

"There are procedures here Ranma," Lisa said, trying to sound forbidding and serious despite Ranma's dreaded puppy-dog eyes attack. She was failing however and they both knew it. "I, I can't just wave my hand at make the regs go away."

"I'll make it worth your while…." Ranma wheedled, coming around the desk. He began to knead her shoulders and neck, and Lisa began to feel all of the built up tensions of the last few weeks drain out of her body.

"Mmm… and how exactly are you going to do that?" Lisa asked, even as she rolled her neck to one side to allow his hands better access, her eyes closing in bliss. "A neck massage alone isn't going to cut it buster."

Ranma smirked, leaning down to kiss her ear lightly before pulling back, his voice a bare whisper, the feel of his breath on Lisa's ear sending a tingling sensation down her spine. "How about I make that fantasy ya shared with Kasumi on your last girl's night out come true?"

Lisa jolted, her eyes widening in shock, remembering precisely what Ranma was talking about with ease. The three ladies had gone out the night before the ship came out of hyperspace in this system, and somehow the three of them had wound up crashing at Nodoka's oft-unused apartment while Nodoka was helping Ranma with the kids. The talk had gotten steamy at one point, involving fantasies and other things.

While Miriya hadn't had any real out-there fantasies and Kasumi had a few rather placid ones involving the kitchen and the garden, Lisa had a specific fantasy she shared. One which just so happened to be set in the room they were in right now. At least for a start, the other part occurred on the bridge, but that part just wasn't going to happen.

 _Damn, I thought I could wheedle a full-works date out of him, but this, wow!_ "I, are you sure?"

"Yeah why not? It ain't like there's much chance of us getting' caught this late at night, and other than the settin' there's nothing in there that I don't normally do anyway, and ya know it Lisa." Ranma laughed then began to nip and lick at Lisa's neck, his hands going to work on the buttons of her uniform.

"In, in that case, I suppose, the, the regs aren't so hard to bypass after allll…." Lisa moaned, then turned her chair around, pushing Ranma back slightly before reaching to her waist and undoing her uniform's pants pulling them off quickly. "And from now on, call me Captain…"

Later, as the two were cuddling in the small cot set along one wall of the room, Lisa confided in Ranma that he hadn't needed to promise that, but Ranma merely laughed it off. "I already knew about Lang's report to ya love, I was there when he sent it to ya. Just figured, after the last few weeks ya deserved some pampering. I plan ta do the same thing ta Miriya in the next few days."

"Hmmpf, that somehow takes a bit of the fun out of it." Lisa pouted.

The pout however disappeared as she felt Ranma returning to attention along her side. "Oh really? Well let me see if I can make it up ta…"

 **OOOOOOO**

The next day, Breetai informed the entire fleet they were done with training for now before instituting a rotation among the ships for maintenance and downtime. Downtime meant the ships assigned to it could start sending their crews on 'shore leave' if they wanted to. This of course meant that most of those ship's crews began to invade Macross City.

While the other ships of the First Fleet all had internal sources of food, none of them had a cityscape. They had some of what Lisa called down time play zones, but none of them could match the variety of entertainment that the city in the space fortress could provide.

Ranma didn't care about that however, despite a faint tingle of guilt knowing that Sanga and his men were going to be helping out the MP's and civilian police keep order. No, Lisa had given her permission for his little outing and that was what he was going to do.

About forty minutes after the first crews started to arrive on the space fortress, Ranma was in the cockpit of his Valkyrie, the VF-1S, the only remaining Valkyrie in the entire UHBA. All of the others had been replaced by newer versions of the original Veritech fighter, the Thunderbolt being the most prevalent variety, though many aces had their own, customized designs. The YF-29 Durendal that had been designed for Motoko for example, or the YF-25 Prophecy built for the other close-range experts.

But with all of the changes that had occurred to Ranma's Valkyrie over time, the amount of ki he had pumped into it and the changes it had gone through in the last weeks of the war, Ranma had never seen any reason to upgrade. Certainly the Valkyrie's physical abilities had continued to keep up with the newer versions. Indeed it surpassed the Thunderbolt type by a wide margin. Not that he was going to be flying it into a battle right now of course, particularly not with the two passengers who were currently sitting in his lap.

After double-checking the twin's helmets, Ranma leaned back in his chair, sending a brief tendril of ki down the interface, connected to the back of his helmet as it was. He felt his Valkyrie wake up for want of a better term then it's ki rise up around him and his children. It wasn't a real consciousness, not even on the level of an animal, but it was there, soft now, but eager and trembling to get back out among it's natural environment, space.

"Space watch actual, this is Wildfire Actual, requesting permission to leave the aft dock for a reconnaissance flight over to the planet."

Instead of Minmei's voice Lisa replied, a smile visible in her tone. Minmei was down in the city giving a concert, something she would be doing for the next few days while the troops of the fleet rotated through the city. Lisa had actually taken over most of the duties on the bridge, using it as an excuse to not have to walk around bow-legged after last night's activities where other officers might see her. "Roger that Wildfire Actual, you are cleared for takeoff. Be advised that I expect your cargo to be returned in one piece, and if not, you'll be sleeping on the couch for the rest of your natural life."

Ranma laughed, as did his two little passengers. "Roger that command."

"By mom, we'll be back soon." said Eric, into his own headset. Both kids were wearing full space suits, though there visors were currently up.

"We'll bring you back a flower!" said Ranko. "Some of those have been cleared by the scientists, right?"

On the bridge of her space fortress Lisa rolled her eyes. "That's a nice thought dear, but I don't think that the garden would be willing to put up with any more competition. Just have fun, and I'll see you tonight."

With that the hanger bay's doors finished opening, and Ranma's Valkyrie shot forward out into space beyond.

During the flight Eric kept questioning Ranma on the differences between his Valkyrie and the Thunderbolts, and why there were so few buttons showing anywhere in the cockpit. He seemed to find the idea of the Valkyrie changing to suit Ranma fascinating, especially sitting in the Valkyries cockpit as he was. Ranko on the other hand continued to stare outside of the canopy, practically pressing her helmet against it the entire flight, letting out a little 'ooohhh' noise when they began to dive down into the atmosphere of the planet.

This planet didn't have quite the same atmosphere as Earth, though it was breathable for humans, better in fact than Earth's present atmosphere, though it's appearance was very different. Up close the air was orange and pink of all things, though it's clouds were the same white as on Earth. The changing colors as the Valkyrie descended from the ionosphere into the deeper levels of the atmosphere was spellbinding for both kids.

Moments later they were close enough to the surface to make out the forest covering it from horizon to horizon. It was a forest of blue and orange trees, with the bottom half of the leaves of the trees being a deep burgundy for some reason Ranma couldn't understand. The trees themselves were nothing like the trees on earth.

Each tree was a small, gnarled affair, but they seemed to be interconnected. One layer of trees grew up from another, their outstretched limbs somehow merging in symbiotic cooperation. At least according to the scientists. The topmost layer of trees had their branches woven together to create small, natural cisterns to hold the water from the infrequent, but heavy rains that moved across the planet. There didn't seem to be much variety in the types of trees either, though their colors varied wildly, covering the whole spectrum of blue and orange.

The biologists had studied the planet and quickly figured out that all of the trees were almost entirely the same, barring one odd variety. One or two 'mutant' trees stood larger here and there, their trunks red, and rather than the small cisterns growing up from there tree branches, these had long, almost elephantine limbs. They could only be found along the small streams that randomly dotted the landscape.

To one side of the forest stood a small but very wide clearing, which was covered by the equivalent of tall grass, which one of the researchers and said had come up to his waist. The grass was actually more like moss in its biological makeup, though again Ranma didn't care, grass was grass as far as he was concerned.

Even the water was different from that found on Earth. Where water on Earth was either clear or tinted blue somewhat in large quantities (the color of the ocean hadn't changed much since the Day of Fire), the water here was a varicolored pink, with small fish that looked more like tadpoles swimming in it, only visible once Ranma had landed the Valkyrie, changing it to Guardian mode quickly. One of the Valkyrie's hands reached out, touching a tree trunk and holding their gently while Ranma cracked canopy. He paused a moment then, breathing in the smell of this planet as his two children did the same.

"Smells like the engine room a bit." said Eric after a moment, remembering one time he and his sister had gotten away to explore a bit before Kasumi-ka found them somehow. "Only fresher. "It's hot!"

"Yep this planet is all supposed to be a kind of a rainforest, though the rain is more random than the rainforest back on Earth used ta get. And it's hot all the time, apparently." The planet, according to one geologist, was going through it's version of the Triassic period, which Ranma had actually heard about before having gone through a Dino-stage like every other kid ever born.

Ranko was still silent staring around avidly.

"Now." said Ranma as he picked the two of them up and leapt up onto the arm of the Valkyrie. "Some ground rules."

Both of the little ones scowled theatrically at the word 'rules', but Ranma refused to let them down, simply shaking them in place under his arms for a moment. "Unless you want me to bundle ya back into my cockpit and leave right now, you're gonna agree to these, and promise to follow 'em, got it?"

Ranko and Eric looked at one another then looked back up at their father faces pleading for a moment. Ranma could feel his control waver under the dreaded Puppy Dog Eye Attack, a technique, it must be admitted, the kids did even better than Ranma in his female form could, but he shook his head resolutely. "None of that and besides, you should know that my roles aren't going to be so harsh."

At that both kids beamed up at him, and he laughed. "Stay in sight of one another and **me** at all times. Don't touch anything that you haven't been shown a picture of in that little packet I gave ya last night. And if you see anything else moving, you're to draw it ta my attention and stay very still until I say otherwise, understood?"

Eric frowned for a moment then nodded slowly. "This is like, like the rules for being in Zero-G right? There are dangers?"

"Yep." Ranma said reaching down and rubbing his son's head affectionately. All three of them had their helmets off now.

Ranko nodded at that. They had learned quickly that being in Zero-G in one of the hangar bays or one of the small schools in the city was a privilege, one they got to keep if they followed the rules. Those schools had been put into place by Lisa at the behest of a petition by several thousand civilian families who wanted their kids to know how to behave in a sudden loss of gravity.

Not surprisingly to Ranma or anyone else who had followed the 'Newtype issue' his kids and the others who fell under that label had passed with flying colors when older kids were not able to follow the rules. Most of the time it was the rules about how to move or checking their suits before putting them on that fouled them up, but the Newtype kids learned them easily, and seemed at home in Zero-G as any humans could be.

 _With the training I've given 'em that second bit didn't surprise me, though the first still does, gotta admit._ Ranma mused, as he watched Eric lead the way along the outstretched arm of the Valkyrie towards the trees. As Ranko made to follow her twin Ranma yelled, "Keep to the area around the Valkyrie for now, we'll be exploring a bit more later!"

Both the kids turned to look at him quizzically, but decided not to question it, instead racing forward into the woods and then jumping up into the branches. They climbed like little monkeys, a holdover from both their Zero-G and martial arts training, their situational awareness and body control astonishing in kids so young.

Soon they were well up into the first level of trees. A moment later they burst out from the top level. When Ranma followed them, he found the two staring at the large cisterns that the trees branches formed to capture water.

A few dozen birds were there, or at least the trio of humans thought of them as birds. They looked almost like little little lizards except for their plumage, reminding Ranma of something he had seen in a dinosaur book when he was younger, though the name escaped him. They had long, thin beaks instead and were very obviously not meat eaters, the beaks not being able to open wide enough to let them eat anything larger than a large bug.

They were curious little creatures, and stared at the two children who had suddenly intruded upon their bathing area with no trepidation. The scientists had reported that as well that the birds and a few other creatures had no fear of the unknown.

Not even the predators. Those animals were described as a horrific amalgamation between a bear and a leopard. They climbed like cats but had the fur and body type of bears, yet with massive single claws on their back feet. Each beapard (a name that made Ranma wince when he first heard it) seemed to have a large territory, and would not intrude into any other beapard's area save to fight or fuck, as one scientist put it.

After a moment the two kids became bored of watching the little flyers, turning around and racing back down into the foliage.

Under Ranma's watchful eyes the two of them continued to explore, finding several varieties of the small flowers that the doctors had reported. To the trees, these flowers came from parasitical vines but they had nothing in them that would harm humans, though they wouldn't survive in a normal Earth-based soil system either. Whether or not that extended to soil treated by the flower of life Ranma didn't know, though he assumed the scientists would have thought of that. _Er, at least Lang would've right? Hmm, best ta check on that._

Gathering up one of each type of flower, under Ranma's directions the twins slowly made their way back to the Valkyrie only to see a familiar red-painted Thunderbolt coming down. "Mother Miriya!" Ranko she said waving her hands. Miriya routinely switched from her Queadluun Rhea, the upgraded version of the original Queadluun Rau, and a Thunderbolt, though the Rhea would be the version she would use in actual combat, going back to her original size to do so. The Thunderbolt however was useful in getting from one place to another.

A moment later the familiar power armor was down next to Ranma's, and Miriya came out, holding Dana to her for a moment before Ranma was there lifting the three-year-old out of her cockpit.

Miriya pulled off her helmet, setting it on the hanger behind her seat as her long, flowing green hair blew in the wind for a moment. She stared around at the planet shaking her head. "You know, before I met your species I think I walked on hundreds of worlds in my Queadluun Rau, but I never once thought of doing so simply for pleasure, or even got out of my cockpit. Yes, some of them were very, pretty I suppose, but the idea of simply going to one and having a look around would never have occurred to anyone in the fleet."

"Would never have been allowed to occur to you, ya mean, and that's really sad." Ranma replied grimly before he shook his mood offered a smile. "Come on, the terrible twosome want to go exploring."

Several hours passed with the family moving through the forest going further than the doctors had, at least on foot. They had a much easier time moving through the tree canopy that was the safe zone of the planet then the doctors had after all, and this area seemed devoid of the large predators. At one point Ranma spotted some kind of huge avian in the distance after chasing Ranko up to another cistern with Dana on his back, but it kept its distance.

At one point Miriya and Ranma were racing along next one another, keeping up with ease with the shorter legs of the two twins while Dana rested on her father's shoulders, giggling and pulling at his ponytail urging him to go faster. "Not that I'm not enjoying myself Ranma, but is there a reason why you wanted to do this?" Miriya asked.

Ranma paused for a moment, then dodged to one side, leaping down to another tree branch as he thought about how to reply. "Hard to explain, but I suppose you could say it's part and parcel of the nature of humanity ta want to explore."

"Over the last few years, with all of our concentration on needing to find the Robotech Masters and make certain they can't threaten us again, the idea of simply exploring space has fallen ta the wayside. Oh there're still doctors and scientists out there who want to, but they're a small minority. But I don't want humanity to lose that **need** to explore, that drive ta see what's out there. Exploring planets like this, the ability to do so, that's a legacy I want to pass on to our kids, and I want to encourage them to, to just explore." Ranma ended rather lamely. "Do you understand what I mean?"

"Well, not quite." Miriya said with a laugh. "I understand enough however. But you really don't think any of these three will be scientists do you?" The very idea was laughable to her. For the baby and for Dana it was too early to tell what they would do, but Eric and Ranko at least were certainly going to become pilots. Both of them had a fascination with jet fighters, and loved the martial arts almost as much Ranma or Miriya did despite their young age.

"Maybe not, but maybe at some point when this war is over soldiers can become explorers too." Ranma shrugged, and the chase continued.

At one point several hours later, they stopped and ate a small lunch, perched alongside one of the myriad cisterns. After that they moved much more slowly, simply exploring rather than racing through and treating the entire planet as a giant jungle gym. All of them took pictures of anything interesting they saw, quadrupling the number of small plants and animals that the scientists had already seen.

Dana was beginning to fall asleep on her father's head, and Ranma was about to suggest that they call it a day when they came upon a bruised and badly damaged tree. The portion of the trees down below at around the halfway point looked as if it had been used as a scratching post by something, though the wounds had long since begun to heal over, the sap doing what it could to close the slices in the bark.

Yet those wounds had just been the start of the trees trouble, several hundred creeper vines had latched onto it, and were slowly choking the life out of it. "What's wrong with it?" Ranko stopped, staring down at the tree far below them, her face almost distraught.

Ranma frowned, crouching down next to her as the rest of the family came up. "It looks as if one of those bear-leopard things had a fight for territory here, and the tree was mauled in the fight. I suppose it's natural. Maybe they used something like this to mark their territory, like dogs and wee."

Where normally that word would have of course elicited at least a giggle from one of his kids, now both of the twins still looked sad. "It's not right." Ranko said frowning. "Shouldn't it be healing itself?"

"Not everything can heal like your father and me dear." Said Miriya, laying a gentle hand on Eric's head. He seemed almost as distraught as his twin.

Ranma looked at them thoughtfully for a moment, then shrugged. "I could try to pump my ki inta it, and see what happens. But I don't know if that'd work."

"Please dad." Eric said. Don't you feel sorry for the tree?"

Ranma shrugged, he personally simply saw it as a fact of life, but his kids were noticeably distraught about it for some reason. _Although come ta think of it, they'd had the same reaction a few months ago when they saw one of the plants in the garden become sickly fer some reason._ "Alright, I'll see what I can do. But first let's see if we can get rid of the vines, okay?"

With Dana left in a small curve of the tree and hooked there by his belt Ranma, Miriya and the twins went to work energetically pulling at the vines. The two youngsters weren't much help of course, but they were almost vindictive in rooting out every vine they could find for their parents to pull off and toss away.

Once this impromptu bit of tree care was finished Ranma laid his hands against the trunk concentrating and bringing up his ki. He began to push a small sliver of his ki into the tree, trying to revive it somehow. But almost immediately he paused, feeling something odd. It took him a moment to realize what it was, someone else was trying to do the same thing, but it wasn't Miriya.

He felt it as Eric and Ranko wrapped their arms around his legs. A moment later, he failed to tiny trickles of ki join his own, but it wasn't the kids, they didn't have enough life energy to do that. Instead, Ranma felt a rush of energy from all around him, the energy of the trees all around and above the wounded tree beginning to feed some of their energy into it. _How, the hell, they're becoming a conduit!_

"Ranma, what, what are they doing…" Miriya gasped, moving forward.

"Don't, they're too deep inta it to feel you, but it ain't their own life energy, they were somehow a conduit for the chi of the trees around us. Don't worry, I'll take up the slack." With that Ranma began to pour his own ki into the tree in larger amounts, taking up the burden from the surrounding trees.

Seconds later he felt Eric and Ranko slump against his legs exhausted. A moment later Ranma pulled back his consciousness from the tree. Already the tree looked better than it had. It's wounds noticeably closed, and the color coming back to it slowly. It wasn't completely healed by any means, but now I was on the road to recovery. Ranma however didn't care a bit about the tree, kneeling swiftly and pulling the twins up into his arms. With his ki sight still open he saw the little bit of ki the kids already had, their life force, refilling quickly from being the fulcrum of whatever they had been doing a moment ago.

Miriya had opened her own ki sight and had followed what was going on, before moving over to Dana pulling her three-year old daughter into her arms. "Another sign of the Newtype phenomena you think? Or is it just the fact that you've been training them?"

"I think that their observational skills are even better than I thought." Ranma said ruefully. "Both of us and Sanga have used ki techniques in front of them, and I've explained the process before, though I think I need to emphasize the dangers of experimenting with it more. I don't want them to stump their growth, or burn themselves out like they just did."

Miriya laughed suddenly shaking her head. "Kasumi's going to really crack up about this you know. Our children just aren't going to be able to 'do normal' even if they try."

"Would you have it any other way?" Ranma asked with a laugh of his own, and the two adults turned with their precious cargo racing back towards their Valkyries as above the sun began to set.

 **OOOOOOO**

Back on the _Macross_ Kasumi sneezed as she left an office building in the center of the city. _Someone must be talking about me,_ she mused, pulling out a handkerchief and wiping her nose daintily for a moment before glancing up at the sky askance, only now realizing that she had been involved in one meeting after another for the entire day. The sky above had changed, the artificial sun changing it's lighting to that of a half moon and the small dots meant to signify stars turning on in the ceiling far above her while the lights on the streets all had come on while she was inside. _Time might fly when you're having fun, but it practically gallops when you're working, at least some of the time._

With a sight Kasumi walked down the street stretching her arms above her head and cracking her neck, not noticing that several men wearing ship designation badges Kasumi hadn't seen before had stopped and stared at her as she did. Kasumi was wearing her traditional conservative dress and skirt combination, but on her body, especially after her pregnancy, anything looked good. Her breasts had grown during that process, and hadn't gone back to normal just yet, despite Kasumi having worked hard to get back into shape.

 _However, it wasn't time wasted at least. Three plans accepted, two more commissions, and two other jobs ready to go to the construction phase. All in all, in excellent day's work, though the company left much to be desired, I think I'm going to have to find a new secretary, pity, he just doesn't seem up to the job. Hmm, I wonder if Tenma is still awake, I could do with some cuddling. Probably not, it's well past his bedtime, and Auntie will have gone out of her way to try to tire him out as she always does._ Nodoka delighted in all of her grandchildren of course, but she loved taking care of babies in particular.

Kasumi continued on her way, exchanging greetings with the people she knew, smiling politely at a few newcomers who made eye-contact with her. She passed through the entire city without a care, knowing that most of its inhabitants knew her and vice versa despite the influx of troops from other ships in the fleet. She could even see a few micronized Zentraedi, who nodded politely at her recognizing her from a few videos from the war.

Not everyone was polite however which was pointed out to Kasumi when she was accosted by a passing soldier. He moved through the crowd of pedestrians around Kasumi, his arm slipping around her shoulders.

He breathed into her face as he spoke, causing Kasumi to reel back at the smell of booze on his breath. When he spoke, it was in heavily accented English, with a hint of Chinese underneath. "Hey p, preeeetty miss, have a drink with me!"

"You are drunk sir, and I am spoken for." Kasumi said gently but firmly.

She moved forward briskly, trying to push the man's arm off her shoulders, only to have him grip her blouse by her shoulder. "Oh c'mon missie, jus, jsuht giveme a kisss…."

However, while not a martial artist of her husband's caliber, Kasumi was an Aikido expert. Swiftly she turned her hands coming up in a flash to grab the man around his wrist. Dislodging his grip on her blouse Kasumi turned, throwing him over her shoulder as she ducked down.

He went down with a thump on the pavement of the road and Kasumi stood up, brushing down her skirt for a moment and shaking her head sadly. "I would suggest that you sober up sir, accosting women, particularly women married ones in the street like this will not make you friends."

A few other men wearing the same ship designation tag as the man scowled at her moving forward. They stopped abruptly however when others in the crowd around them growled angrily.

Before anything else could happen however other men wearing myriad designation badges came out of the crowd, moving towards the man on the ground. "Sorry ma'am," said one of them, an American from his accent wearing the ship designation of the Big E. "Er, we're all lieutenants and commanders off the super-carriers and battleships. We got into a drinking contest. But and well, Chonglin's commanding officer is enough to drive anyone to drink, and he was probably already two sheets to the wind before we began."

"Aye we were." said another voice, and the crowd seemed to part somewhat for another man, who surprisingly wore a full captain's tabs. He was a largish bear of a man, almost as wide across the shoulders as he was tall, and had a very thick bushy beard and bushy hair, both of which were immensely curly and red. Regulations for beards and suchlike had been entirely slashed from the UHBA but even so it haven't exactly normal to see someone with a fully grown beard like this. He wore a ship designation Kasumi hadn't seen before, a massive spear with a head that flared out slightly to two small tines sticking out to either side of the main point on a background made of the flag of Norway.

He bowed politely to Kasumi. "Morgan Dreek at your service ma'am, captain of the _Gungnir_. I recognize you from a few music videos and tabloids." He shrugged uncomfortably. "my former wife used ta read them. I'm sorry for Chonglin, but his commanding officer's a …."

He paused searching for an appropriate term to use in polite company, and a British voice from behind interrupted him "Ducks bottom?"

The man now moving through the crowd was one Kasumi had met before, and she smiled faintly at Mark Prescott, holding out her hands to him. "Mark! I didn't realize that you were aboard."

Mark shrugged his shoulders. He hadn't wanted to leave the Valkyries, but the opportunity to be CAG and second-in-command aboard the super-carrier _Victory_ had been far too good for him to pass up. "I wasn't supposed to be until tomorrow, but my Captain suddenly decided to switch out, I think he didn't want to be around this one's captain. The man's competent enough, but on a personal level…"

"Well, I suppose I can hardly blame Mr. Chonglin for wishing to forget his troubles, but he really should learn when no means no, even drunk." Kasumi said sternly.

"Massage received ma'am." The unintroduced American replied, gesturing wordlessly to the men who had looked so angry at Kasumi's treatment of the man earlier. "You lot, get him out of here and find some way to sober him up before letting him out into polite society again."

The men obeyed with alacrity, quickly escaping through the still somewhat hostile crowd of onlookers, who slowly dispersed now. Kasumi turned to Mark with a smile. "You know, you should come by and meet Eric at some point. You haven't seen him since he was a baby, and I think he's turning out very well. And he's just as interested in piloting as his father or his namesake ever was."

Mark smiled sadly. He and Scott had both been immensely proud that Ranma had named his firstborn son after their brother, but it was still a bittersweet thing to contemplate for them both. That loss was one that had yet to heal for either of them. Mark intended to extract his own bit of vengeance on the true perpetrators of that war eventually, which he hoped would start that process. "I, I suppose I can do that at some point. For now though, I have a party to get to."

At Kasumi's raised eyebrow and steely stare he went on hurriedly. "If you give me a com number, I can schedule a time to come over at some point in the next few days?"

Kasumi nodded, and wrote out the home phone number for him before walking. A second later she found Shampoo suddenly beside her giggling quietly, nudging her in the side. "You handled that almost as well as an Amazon."

"And why, if you were here, didn't you step in?" Kasumi asked, though she smiled at the compliment.

"Shampoo knew you could handle it." Shampoo replied. While she had learned English far better than she had Japanese, the verbal tics she had learned in that language occasionally showed up, though Kasumi was of the opinion that she let them appear these days simply to sound cutesy or younger than she really was. Not that she needed to, Shampoo was still young and frankly gorgeous, with a figure that at least half the women aboard the Macross envied so much it was a wonder their eyes didn't turn green.

"Really, I would've thought you would enjoy watching your…" Kasumi paused as she thought of the term. "Um, ex-fellow countrymen? Something like that anyway. Jump out of their skins when you show up"

Shampoo shrugged. "I can see that anytime, but seeing Kasumi the gentle goddess of hearth and home tossing someone? That's rare." She smirked evilly. "Shampoo think that man should get off _Macross_ before Ranma and Miriya come back and hear of this. Or even worse, before Lisa hears a report about it. Being drunk and disorderly in public is one thing, hitting on Kasumi another."

Kasumi actually winced. "That would be cruel and unusual punishment Shampoo."

"Still funny though." Shampoo said with a laugh.

 **OOOOOOO**

About two days after Ranma had taken his three eldest down to the planet that had since come to be called Livingston, the fleet had made its way back out of the system before jumping out. They could've jumped out from deeper into the system of course, but that would've left a larger hyperspace footprint, and Breetai and the other senior officers had decided it wasn't worth it to tempt fate with that kind of thing. Just because a skirmish fleet wasn't in the system now didn't mean that the system was off a patrol route.

But it wasn't the Zentraedi spotting them that Breetai and the others should've worried about. A bare 17 hours after the First Fleet jumped out, a thousand ships popped into the system. If a Zentraedi had been there, they would've recognized the ships as Invid, but not quite. These had a much higher output than most Invid ships, but were smaller than their normal gunships as well. That wasn't to say they weren't Invid, they were. But they were not part of the Regent's forces.

The ships spread out, slowly moving through the entire system, scanning for a hyperspace footprint. They soon found it, but it wasn't a powerful enough signal for them to trace where the fleet had jumped out to. The best they could do was find a general direction along a 55 degree angle. After the commanders of the ships concluded this, they sent out a signal into hyperspace.

A few seconds later, a fleet of nearly two-hundred thousand ships popped in on their position. While many of the ships were the same variety as the first thousand, scattered throughout the fleet were far larger vessels of two varieties. One type was clearly a battleship, its sides bristling with weapons while the top and bottom of the ships was festooned with launch tubes. The other looked like a somewhat streamlined version of the Invid factory ships.

One ship however was different from all the others. It was shaped like a teardrop with a small diamond set top and bottom. It didn't seem to have any weapons emplacements, though it was larger than even the factory ships. That size, and the odd gold and white color it was painted rather than the blue and green of the rest of the fleet, marked it out as something special.

Slowly this ship oriented itself, the point of the teardrop coming about to face deeper into the system. On board the ship, a scientist-class Invid moved its hand to one side, and a small microphone extruded from the wall to rest in front of his proboscis. "Regis, we have arrived at the system where you felt the Xshoisthas reaction. There was a hyperspace footprint here my lady, but our surveyors can get nothing out of it save a very general direction, not even the size of the fleet, though their best guess is on the small size. Another hyperspace footprint was found elsewhere in the system, but it was too badly decayed to tell anything about it.

" _That is immaterial at present Alashel."_ said the Regis' voice. But unlike the voice of the scientist caste who had given her the report, her voice was telepathic, touching his mind gently. The Regis always communicated with her followers thus; it has been millennia since any of them had seen her in the flesh. She kept to a small secluded and separate section of her flagship, the name of which would translate into English as something like the "the Careful Gardener". But even so, her thoughts and presence were felt by all of her followers, and not one of them had wavered in their belief in the Regis or her cause despite her physical distance from them.

" _What we want is here, remember what we want is knowledge, not confrontation. We made that mistake once, and found ourselves in a war with an implacable enemy. We cannot afford to make the same mistake again."_

"Of course Regis." said Alashel, looking over at the command cast Lord of the Ship. Both of them remembered that time with shame and sorrow.

During the initial war the Regis looked for any information about Zor. She and many of the scientist caste had been overjoyed to earn that he was making war against his former students as well. All attempts to contact him failed, but eventually the Regis found a moon that held a small research station Zor had set up. It didn't have any information on his current whereabouts, but it did have some information on where he had disappeared to on his journey of discovery years before.

Several decades later, the Regent decided to commit genocide on any other space-going race to defend the Xshoisthas and make certain no other race could abuse it's gift despite the ongoing war with the Master's massive guards. The Regis, and those like her among the noble, scientist and leader castes who found this act abhorrent, broke from millennia of genetic imperative and left the rest of their race. Instead of making war however, the Regis decided to see if she could discover any allies that Zor had might have made and warn them about the regent.

They had found several races like this both those that Zor had met and others who he had not. Every time they did, the Regis would telepathically learn their language then warn them to stay away from the Invid area of space, to keep their emissions low, and generally hide. None of them, not even all of them combined, would have been able to match the numbers of a single combat fleet of the Invid or their enemies, the Zentraedi. But one race had not been an ally or friend of Zor. Indeed they had been his enemy.

The Haydonites were a race that glorified the change from weak flesh to powerful mechanical constructions. The change to what humans would call cyborgs began almost upon birth, and continued all their lives until their brains were removed to control the ships or systems of their single planet. They saw the Xshoisthas and 'proto-culture', the ability to achieve a higher order of being through the use of natural energy, as the purest anathema. They had nearly killed Zor after realizing the explorer used such an energy, and attacked the Regis and her forces the moment they sensed the power within them.

No amount of telepathic or physical discussion had assuaged them, and the Regis' forces had been forced to fight them. The Regis had won in the end but it cost them badly in numbers. And unlike the Regent, the Regis had no planets to call upon for resources. She could make good those losses, and had in the centuries since with asteroid mining and dozens of hastened reproductive cycles, but that was not her way, nor the way of her followers. They wanted to evolve to the next level of being, they did not want to devolve like the Zentraedi or Invid had through such a process.

The Regis allowed for a moment of silence before going on. _"Let us move deeper into the system to that garden world. Once there, please prepare two of the hybrid's specialized battle suits. I will require their eyes."_

Several hours later to seemingly Tirolian/human individuals stood before the magnificent mural that was the entrance to the Regis' section of the ship. As always they stopped and stared at it before making their presence known.

It was a picture that the Regis herself had painted, depicting the life on their planet before the coming of the 'Robotech Masters'. Yet this was a scene that had never happened in real life. The scene showed the Invid working in concert with some of Zor's followers and in the foreground was the Regis herself, somehow caught just as her physical body settled into the humanoid form she became to better communicate with Zor and the others. To one side of the Regis stood a Tirolian, who could only be Zor himself, caught as he had been in his youth, energetic, full of life, his eyes gleaming with the hunger-knowledge that was at his core.

The detail of it, the beauty of the landscape and the time it had taken to paint it always shook anyone who saw it. After a moment however the male hybrid spoke going to one knee in supplication. "Regis, you have called us and we have come, what is your will?"

" _What have I told you about that Battora?"_ said the Regis' voice in his head, along with a feeling of rebuke yet also amusement. _"I require no one to kneel to me, such is not our way."_

"It was a sign of respect among the Robotech Masters, so the ancient stories said, and who else should I use it for save you?" said the one apparently named Battora. Though there was something in his tone that seemed to indicate it was as much a rote response as the Regis' had been, a set formula or joke.

This was an old game for both of them, and the female hybrid beside Battora rolled her eyes as she always did at the byplay. "You wish to see through our eyes, my lady?"

" _Indeed I do, Sera."_ said the Regis voice, her mental tone soft and warm as she spoke to two of the five hybrids among her fleet, who could almost be called her own children in a way. "I sensed a proto-culture response in the system, faint but… **deep**."

The two seeming humans exchanged glances before Sera spoke again. "We don't understand."

" _I'm not certain I do either…"_ said the Regis, her tone now thoughtful. _"This is something new, the like of which I have not felt before. Yet despite that certainty I cannot help but feel it has an odd feel to it that almost reminds me of memories of long ago, long,_ _ **long**_ _ago... In any event, I have no doubt it is in some way connected to the_ _Xshoisthas, and that is enough to make me wish for a closer look."_

"We will get you that closer look my lady." said Sera. "By your leave?"

There was a feeling of weight on their shoulders, as if a hand had been laid there, and then the feeling was gone. _"Go."_

Moments later the two hybrids exited the ship in their combat mecha. Unlike the Invid's normal space fighters, these were much more humanoid in appearance, standing upright with normal arms rather than hunched and oversized arms. One hand ended in a four fingered claw, with a shield magnetized to it's outer side. The other had five, smaller fingers for better manual dexterity, and had a cannon ensconced on its outer side. On on shoulder they both carried a twin-linked cannon, though Sera also carried a large sword strapped to her back, while Battora carried a laser rifle for his claw hand. Batorra's was painted green with bronze highlights on its chest and one-eyed head mount. Sera's in turn was painted brown with orange highlights.

They flew down towards the planet, slowing as they saw it for the first time from up close. "Magnificent."

"Yes, I am glad that whoever was here did not destroy it as the Zentraedi have done so often."

"And our own people, don't forget. Or do you think it is only the spacefaring races themselves rather than their worlds which suffer under the Regent's assaults?" asked Sera caustically.

"You're right, I just wish you were wrong. It's a sad thing to realize our race has fallen as low as the Tirolians they fight." Battora shook his head sadly, his suit mimicking the move obediently.

They fell silent and a few moments of leisurely flight later they were over the point where the Regis had sent them. "Regis we are here," Sera said into her communicator, knowing that the Regis preferred to look through her mind rather than her brother's. Why this was neither of them understood.

Sera never mentioned it but sometimes she had flashes of the Regis' thoughts at moments like these, or memories perhaps. They were very strange and sometimes made her very… uncomfortable with her body for a few hours after.

" _Thank you Sera."_ Through her hybrid's eyes the Regis stared at the tree Eric, Ranko and Ranma had healed then around at the others. _"Look down towards the ground for a moment if you can."_

Both hybrids did so staring down directly below the tree, with difficulty admittedly with all of branches in the way. " _Interesting."_

The Regis was an old hand at anything to do with botany or plant life, with experience from literally millennia uncounted to call upon. She could easily see what had going on here from beginning to end. What was astonishing however, was the lingering 'scent' of life energies transferred from the surrounding trees and into the wounded one. _Such an energy transfer could only have been accomplished via the Xshoisthas! That is one of the things the flower did in the wild even before the Zor came._ She could've done much the same thing, as could practically every in Invid could have back then. _Very interesting._

After staring at the images through her hybrid's eyes, sensing what the hybrid could sense but could not truly grasp, the Regis pulled her consciousness back. _"That is enough, thank you both. Return to the ship."_

With that command the two hybrids turned, slowly rising before activating thier afterburners so as to not damage the plants below.

In her sanctum the Regis frowned thoughtfully, holding up one pale, translucent hand. It was a sign of her greatest hope, the hope she held for her people the hope she felt for herself. Yet it was also a sign of her greatest failure.

When she was younger, the Regis in conjunction with the Regent had decided that one of them had to take on human form to better communicate and understand with the Tirolians. Regis had not been at all prepared for the sheer **flood** of sensation that came with the human form. How many thoughts went through a human mind below the level of conscious thought, how many impulses and bodily functions and above all, desires.

It was the **desires** that had impacted her most of all, and Zor, that lecherous lolicon, had taken advantage of it and her. The Regis had searched for a term that encompassed what she felt Zor had acted like in Tirolian archives, and considering her lack of experience the word was an apt one, whatever her physical form looked like.

Looking back the Regis knew she had been seduced away from her own people in a way. Something fundamentally changed in her not just from his affections but because of her body at the time.

Later, hundreds of years after she had split off from the Regent the Regis had attempted to evolve herself once more, only fail. She did not have the necessary power without access to a pure Xshoisthas. Something that her own race had done to the flowers under their control had limited the power she could glean out of them. Instead she had come out of the chrysalis in a half-and-half form, half Tirolian, half Invid.

 _Yet even so, I was able to learn enough from it to create my hybrids. They will be able to mentally manipulate the Xshoisthas like our race has always been able to, but with the control and ability to mold it that Zor discovered, possibly even more. Their thought processes are fundamentally different than our own, and I am interested to see if they continue to grow such._

 _But to do that, I must find an original, untouched Xshoisthas. This is one of the first leads I have had in centuries. I thought I detected the echo of similar five solar cycles ago, but that trail is long dead now. This one is very much alive._

Concentrating the Regis opened up her mind to the commander of her flagship, who she had named Aethecas. _"Send me the sensor readings for that outgoing hyperspace jump. Let us see what I can piece from it."_

 **OOOOOOO**

The First Fleet came out of hyperspace more times, one time to fill up their energy reserves, and another to check out a system with two suns to allow the scientists to get some readings from how space acted there in relation to a normal system. Not that they needed to, but it was a good habit to get into when they could. At both stops the fleet would perform more fleet maneuvers, which would be followed by four days off for all involved.

Life with Ranma and his family didn't change much in that time. Ranma didn't bother to report his kid's odd ki ability to anyone, simply taking it for granted that his kids were just that cool. All the parents continued to make time for them and eachother while still being very busy with their various jobs/duties. At one point Ranko and Eric finished their work in kindergarten and the parents took all the kids out to Mini Universe to celebrate.

There were some changes to the command structure of the fleet during that time. A few captains were removed, including the _Yung Shun_ 's CAG with his captains approval and Lisa's backing. She refused to let the man remain in a command position. His ability and connections back home were not worth the loss of morale and initiative among his officers.

Now nearly two months away from Sol other disciplinary issues began to show up across the fleet. Three men aboard the _Macross_ were executed for creating a lab where they began to create LSD's and other drugs. That law had not changed since the original  Macross. Space was no place for that kind of thing, regardless of the size of the ship or the population.

Surprisingly Breetai ran into the same issues on the Zentraedi side, several of his men having discovered that use of LSDs could make them forget that in the long run they were going to all go mad and die. While Breetai could sympathize with them he was not about to allow such stupidity to spread. And his captains and Commodores all knew it, clamping down hard on anything of that nature.

After the second stop and rest period, Breetai once more called the senior officers together. "Our next jump will bring us into areas that will almost certainly have some Zentraedi presence. I do not believe it will be anything large however. A few skirmish flotillas on routine patrol perhaps, if we're very unlucky an entire skirmish fleet, doing a routine annihilation junket.

He scowled at his own words, and more than one of his listeners winced. Annihilation junkets as Breetai put them had been described to the humans by Breetai years ago. After an intelligent race was wiped out, the Zentraedi skirmish fleets of the would routinely pass thorugh star systems to make certain that nothing had survived to attempt to go back to the stars. Wiping out whole life bearing planets didn't often happen, instead the fleets would wipe out all intelligent life by sending troops down to the planets and making certain up close and personal. Such expeditions would last for months, but were inevitably very thorough. And they left the planets themselves relatively intact, unlike the planet the Dolza had ordered bombarded to scare Ranma and Lisa.

"Whatever we face, it will be a good chance to blood the fleet in its entirety before we face any true threat. As such, we are going to be jumping into the system in two groups. Moreover, I am ordering all the ships to activate their hyperspace dampeners."

The hyperspace dampener was one of Dr. Lang's most interesting discoveries. It was possible to dampen down a hyperspace footprint, that splash of energy which occurs when the ship went into or out of hyperspace. you could never dampen it down enough so that an active scan wouldn't be able to find you, but you could dampen it down enough so that the scanner would have to be looking right in your direction or directly on top of you to find it.

The 'subs' the missiles ships, had the best dampeners in the fleet, a triple redundancy system that practically made them invisible coming in or out of hyperspace unless you were directly on top of them. They also had dampeners on practically everything else that could give them away like communications or energy output. Even the armor of their ships was coated in an (extremely expensive, as in almost as expensive as building the ships themselves) coating of paint that could be programmed to mimic the stars around them.

Breetai nodded at Alexei, gesturing at a small holo. It showed a basic schematic of the star system, with none of the interior information filled in. All they knew about the system they are going to jump into at this point was that it was an orange class star, and that it might contain two gas giants. Everything else was speculative, and even that was based on what long-range astrophysics could tell them. It wasn't exactly an exact science this far removed however.

"While the rest of the fleet waits out system," he said tapping a point at the outer edge of the Hill sphere, before tapping another point near the equivalent of Pluto's orbit around the sun. "You will hyperspace in here, and do a reconnaissance in force moving towards the inner system. I want a full analysis of the syste while the rest of the fleet will move in behind you."

Alexie nodded grimly. Despite his dislike of being anything but a captain this kind of mission was the kind he loved. "We've been training on this Admiral, we'll get the job done."

"Good. As I said, I honestly doubt we'll run into anything special, but if we do, I have no doubt will be ready for it." Breetai didn't understand why Ranma and Lisa both looked at each other before groaning aloud as he said that, but decided it was a human thing and moved on with the meeting from there.

 **OOOOOOO**

Later that night Miriya, Lisa and Ranma sat in their bedroom, with Kasumi staring aghast at the other three. "Admiral Breetai really said that? That exact wording? I thought he was supposed to be smart!"

Miriya frowned. "Will someone please explain this to me? You two have looked like someone kicked your pet or something since the meeting, but I don't understand what was wrong with what Lord Breetai said."

"The problem is, there's this thing called Lady Luck Miriya-chan, and saying shit like that is like, like…" Ranma paused, trying to think of an analogy that would work. "Like waving one of our rings in front of Tenma." Tenma was very grabby, and loved to play with his parents' rings when he saw them on the chains Lisa, Ranma and Kasumi kept them on. "It's practically begging crazy shit to go down."

"It's a human thing Miriya, we believe in luck, random events that may or may not work in our favor. Statements like Breetai's are notorious for daring events to go against you." Lisa supplied somewhat more understandably.

Miriya still looked confused, but nodded. "I understand I suppose, but what can we do about it now?"

Ranma stood up resolutely, leaning in to kiss each of his wives in turn so ardently it took their breath away before moving to lock the door to their bedroom. "I am damn well takin' tomorrow off to spend with the kids and right now, the four of us are going to have an 'adults only' night. If we're gonna be thrown into the shit, I am damn well gonna enjoy the time left before we step into it!"

 **End chapter**

* * *

This is the first of many sci-fi related updates I hope to share with you all. Despite my muse being hip deep in WW, I have been on a major Sci-fi bend in the spare time that story leaves me, and have found several new audiobooks to listen to (including the unabridged versions of the Thrawn saga, hint) and will try to share the works this has inspired next month.

In other news, I am afraid the Wizard of the Dead story is dead for now. When attempting to write it, I could only come up with assorted combat and lemon scenes, not a real plot. If anyone knows a story that could breathe life into this particular muse - High School of the Dead, not that particular crossover, though no Naruto fics unless they are well written and currently being updated - I will come back to it quickly, but right now, it's dead. I will however attempt to have something else for you all for new Years. Until then, Merry Christmas once again, have a happy and safe holiday. Unless these are mutually exclusive, then go for the former, YOLO!


End file.
